Online Study Guide

Rococo: The French Taste :: The Enlightenment: Philosophy and Society :: The Enlightenment: Science and Technology :: Voltaire Versus Rousseau: Science Versus the Taste For the "Natural" :: The Revival of Interest in Classicism :: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism :: The Rise of Romanticism :: Imagination and Mood in Landscape Painting :: Various Revivalist Styles in Architecture :: The Beginnings of Photography

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THE REVIVAL OF INTEREST IN CLASSICISM

Models of Enlightenment: A defining characteristic of the late eighteenth century is a renewed interest in classical antiquity, which is manifested in painting, sculpture, and architecture, as well as in fashion and home decor. The geometric harmony of classical art and architecture embodied Enlightenment ideals, while classical cultures of the Greek and Roman republics, with their traditions of liberty, civic virtue, morality, and sacrifice, served as ideal models of enlightened political organization. The excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii also stirred public interest in the classical past. The ancient world also became the focus of scholarly attention, notably in the work of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the first modern art historian, who characterized Greek sculpture as manifesting a "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur" and who drew attention to distinctions between Greek and Roman art.

Setting the Stage for Neoclassicism in Art

A Roman example of virtue:

Angelica Kauffmann contributed to the replacement of "natural" pictures with simple figure types, homely situations, and contemporary settings with subject matter of an exemplary nature drawn from Greek and Roman history and literature. Her Cornelia Presenting Her Children as Her Treasures treats the theme of virtue with the example of Cornelia presenting her own sons as her jewels.

28-20: ANGELICA KAUFFMANN, Cornelia Presenting Her Children as Her Treasures, or Mother of the Gracchi, ca. 1785. Oil on canvas, 3' 4" x 4' 2". Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (the Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund).

Neoclassicism in France

Planting the seeds of glory:

Jacques-Louis David, the Neoclassical painter-ideologist of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic empire, favored the classical and academic traditions. His painting of the Oath of the Horatii depicts a heroic story of courageous and patriotic self-sacrifice set in pre-Republican Rome, in which carefully modeled rigidly statuesque male figures enact a virile drama in a shallow space defined by a severely simple architectural framework. The rectilinear forms and noble virtues displayed by the men are contrasted with the curvilinear collapsing forms of the women, whose weak female nature is shown overcome by emotion and sorrow.

28-21: JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID, Oath of the Horatii, 1784. Oil on canvas, approx. 11' x 14'. Louvre, Paris.

In the service of revolution:

David put classicism in the service of the French Revolution in The Oath of the Tennis Court (commissioned by the Jacobins), in which the patriotic drama of a contemporary historical event is presented as an instructive and inspiring example of patriotism and civic virtue.

A martyred revolutionary:

In a spare Neoclassical composition, David painted the assassinated revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat as a tragic martyr who died in the service of the state.

28-22: JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID, The Death of Marat, 1793. Oil on canvas, approx. 5' 3" x 4' 1". Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels.

Napolean's ascendance:

In the large The Coronation of Napoleon, David documented the pomp and pageantry of Napoleon's coronation in December of 1804. The action is presented as if on a theater stage, and makes a complex statement about the changing politics in Napoleonic France.

28-23: JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID, The Coronation of Napoleon, 1805-1808. Oil on canvas, 20' 4 1/2 x 32' 1 3/4 . Louvre, Paris.

Roman Grandeur in France:

Jacques-Germain Soufflot's grand design for the Neoclassical portico of Sainte-Geneviève, now the Panthéon, in Paris, was inspired by the Roman ruins at Baalbek in Syria.

28-24: JACQUES-GERMAIN SOUFFLOT, the Panthéon (Sainte-Geneviève), Paris, France, 1755-1792.

A Napoleonic "Temple of Glory":

La Madeleine was intended to serve as a "temple of glory" for Napoleon's armies and a monument to the newly won glories of France. Pierre Vignon's grandiose design includes a high podium and broad flight of stairs leading to a deep porch in the front, which recall Roman imperial temples.

28-25: PIERRE VIGNON, La Madeleine, Paris, France, 1807-1842.

The emperor's sister as goddess:

Napoleon's favorite sculptor, Antonio Canova, carved a sharply detailed marble portrait of Napoleon's sister, Pauline Borghese, as Venus shown reclining in a sensuous pose on a divan.

28-26: ANTONIO CANOVA, Pauline Borghese as Venus, 1808. Marble, life-size. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

Neoclassicism in England

The appeal of Classical antiquity was also felt in England, where it emerges in a simple and commonsensical style of architecture derived from the authority of Vitruvius through the work of Andrea Palladio and Inigo Jones.

Invoking Palladio:

Lord Burlington's Chiswick House is a free variation on the theme of Palladio's Villa Rotonda. Its simple symmetry, unadorned planes, right angles, and stiffly wrought proportions give it very classical and "rational" appearance. In contrast, the interior is ornamented in a Late Baroque style, while the informal gardens are irregularly laid out.

28-27: RICHARD BOYLE (earl of Burlington) and WILLIAM KENT, Chiswick House, near London, England, begun 1725. British Crown Copyright.

Palladian splendor:

John Wood the Younger's plan for the Royal Crescent in Bath links thirty houses into rows behind a single, continuous, majestic Palladian façade in a great semiellipse.

28-28: JOHN WOOD THE YOUNGER, the Royal Crescent, Bath, England, 1769-1775.

A Greek portico in England:

In the volumes of Antiquities of Athens, James Stuart distinguished Greek art from the "derivative" Roman style. His design for the portico at Hagley Park reconstructs a Doric temple known as the Theseion.

28-29: JAMES STUART, Doric portico, Hagley Park, Worcestershire, England, 1758.

The discovery and initial excavation of Pompeii and Herculaneum inspired Neoclassical interior design. Wall paintings and other artifacts of Pompeii inspired the slim, straight-lined, elegant "Pompeian" style.

Adapting Pompeian decor:

Robert Adam's delicate Pompeian design of the Etruscan Room at Osterley Park House is symmetrical and rectilinear. Decorative motifs, such as medallions, urns, vine scrolls, sphinxes, and tripods derived from Roman art are sparsely arranged within broad, neutral spaces and slender margins.

28-30: ROBERT ADAM, Etruscan Room, Osterley Park House, Middlesex, England, begun 1761. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Neoclassicism in the United States

Jeffersonian idealism:

Thomas Jefferson wanted to adopt a symbolic Neoclassicism as the national architecture of the United States. He re-designed his own home of Monticello to emulate Palladio's architecture, with a façade inspired by the work of Robert Adam. Pierre L'Enfant's plan for the city of Washington, D.C., is logically ordered. In his design for the Capitol, Benjamin H. Latrobe said he wanted to re-create "the glories of the Greece of Pericles in the woods of America."

28-31: THOMAS JEFFERSON, Monticello, Charlottesville, United States, 1770-1806.

28-32: Drawing of view of Washington, 1852, showing BENJAMIN LATROBE'S Capitol (1803-1807) and MAJOR L'ENFANT'S plan (created in 1791) of the city.

Free at last:

The Neoclassical style Jefferson championed so successfully for the architecture of the new democracy was invoked by American sculptors as well. The following sculpture depicts freed African American slaves.

28-33: EDMONIA LEWIS, Forever Free, 1867. Marble, 3' 5 1/4" x 11' x 7". James A. Porter Gallery of Afro-American Art, Howard University, Washington, D.C.