Which German art historian's 1764 work 'History of the Art of Antiquity' is foundational to neoclassicism?

The German art historian whose 1764 History of the Art of Antiquity was foundational to neoclassicism was Johann Joachim Winckelmann.

Winckelmann, born in 1717, helped transform the study of ancient art from collecting and connoisseurship into a more systematic historical discipline. In Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, he arranged ancient art into developmental periods and distinguished Greek, Greco-Roman, and Roman traditions more carefully than many earlier writers had.

His famous ideal of Greek art as expressing “noble simplicity and quiet grandeur” strongly influenced neoclassical artists, architects, writers, and collectors. Winckelmann studied antiquities in Rome and worked closely with major collections, including that of Cardinal Alessandro Albani. His enthusiasm for ancient Greece helped shift European taste away from late Baroque and Rococo exuberance toward classical balance and restraint.

The title is sometimes translated as History of Ancient Art rather than History of the Art of Antiquity; both refer to the same 1764 work. Goethe, Lessing, and other German intellectuals were influential figures in the wider classical revival, but they were not the author of this foundational art-historical study.