''Die Propyläen'' was a periodical begun in July 1798 by

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...

and his friend

Johann Heinrich Meyer Johann Heinrich Meyer (16 March 1760 – 11 October 1832) was a Swiss painter, engraver and art critic. He served as the second Director of the Weimar Princely Free Drawing School. A close associate of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, he was often ref ...

Impetus

During the journal's short, three-year existence its various contributors and editors, for example, shown in essays by

Wilhelm von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (, also , ; ; 22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named after ...

and

Friedrich von Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...

, sought to address, disseminate, and foment ideas and fundamental conceptions concerning art and aesthetic processes and therewith to determine, on cultural and social levels of influence, what characterizes art's essential import and its practice by artists. Alike to

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...

's '' Die Horen'', the journal's basic impetus was to extend the reach of classical values in art. Through its

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

name, "''Propyläen''" (from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''προπύλαιον'', ''propylai