Art Was Intended to Teach Moral Lessons and Convey Enlightenment Ideals Such as Courage

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism refers to movements in the arts that draw inspiration from the "classical" fine art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome.

Learning Objectives

Identify attributes of Neoclassicism and some of its key figures

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• The pinnacle of Neoclassicism coincided with the 18th century Enlightenment era, and continued into the early on 19th century.
• With the increasing popularity of the Grand Tour, information technology became fashionable to collect antiquities equally souvenirs, which spread the Neoclassical style through Europe and America.
• Neoclassicism spanned all of the arts including painting, sculpture, the decorative arts, theatre, literature, music, and architecture.
• By and large speaking, Neoclassicism is divers stylistically by its use of straight lines, minimal use of color, simplicity of form and, of class, an adherence to classical values and techniques.
• Rococo, with its accent on asymmetry, brilliant colors, and ornamentation is typically considered to be the directly opposite of the Neoclassical style.

Key Terms

• Grand Bout: The traditional tour of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from almost 1660 until the appearance of large-scale runway transit in the 1840s.
• Enlightenment: A concept in spirituality, philosophy, and psychology related to achieving clarity of perception, reason, and cognition.
• Rococo: A manner of baroque compages and decorative art, from 18th century French republic, having elaborate ornament.

The classical revival, also known equally Neoclassicism, refers to movements in the arts that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. The superlative of Neoclassicism coincided with the 18th century Enlightenment era, and continued into the early 19th century. The dominant styles during the 18th century were Baroque and Rococo. The latter, with its accent on disproportion, bright colors, and ornamentation is typically considered to be the direct opposite of the Neoclassical manner, which is based on order, symmetry, and simplicity. With the increasing popularity of the Grand Tour, it became fashionable to collect antiquities as souvenirs. This tradition of collecting laid the foundations for many corking art collections and spread the classical revival throughout Europe and America.

Neoclassicism grew to encompass all of the arts, including painting, sculpture, the decorative arts, theatre, literature, music, and architecture. The style tin can generally be identified by its utilise of straight lines, minimal use of colour, simplicity of grade and, of grade, its adherence to classical values and techniques.

In music, the menstruum saw the rising of classical music and in painting, the works of Jaques-Louis David became synonymous with the classical revival. Nevertheless, Neoclassicism was felt nigh strongly in compages, sculpture, and the decorative arts, where classical models in the same medium were fairly numerous and attainable. Sculpture in item had a slap-up wealth of ancient models from which to acquire, however, well-nigh were Roman copies of Greek originals.

Rinaldo Rinaldi, Chirone Insegna Ad Achille a Suonare La Cetra : Executed in a classical mode and adhering to classical themes, this sculpture is a typical case of the Neoclassical fashion.

Neoclassical architecture was modeled after the classical manner and, as with other art forms, was in many ways a reaction against the exuberant Rococo way. The architecture of the Italian builder Andrea Palladio became very pop in the mid 18th century. Additionally, archaeological ruins found in Pompeii and Herculaneum informed many of the stylistic values of Neoclassical interior design based on the ancient Roman rediscoveries.

Villa Godi Valmarana, Lonedo di Lugo, Veneto, Italy: Villa Godi was one of the outset works past Palladio. Its austere facade, arched doorways and minimal symmetry reflect his adherence to classical stylistic values.

Neoclassical Paintings

Neoclassical painting, produced by men and women, drew its inspiration from the classical art and culture of ancient Hellenic republic and Rome.

Learning Objectives

Hash out the overarching themes present in Neoclassical painting

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Neoclassical field of study matter draws from the history and general civilisation of aboriginal Greece and Ancient Rome. Information technology is often described equally a reaction to the lighthearted and "frivolous" subject affair of the Rococo.
• Neoclassical painting is characterized by the use of straight lines, a shine paint surface, the delineation of light, a minimal apply of color, and the clear, well-baked definition of forms.
• The works of Jacques-Louis David are normally hailed as the prototype of Neoclassical painting.
• David attracted over 300 students to his studio, including Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Marie-Guillemine Benoist, and Angélique Mongez, the terminal of whom tried to extend the Neoclassical tradition across her teacher's death.

Primal Terms

• Enlightenment: A philosophical movement in 17th and 18th century Europe. Besides known equally the Age of Reason, this was an era that emphasized rationalism.

Groundwork and Characteristics

Neoclassicism is the term for movements in the arts that draw inspiration from the classical art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. The peak of Neoclassicism coincided with the 18th century Enlightenment era and continued into the early 19th century. With the advent of the Grand Bout—a much enjoyed trip around Europe intended to innovate immature men to the extended culture and people of their world—it became stylish to collect antiquities equally souvenirs. This tradition laid the foundations of many great collections and ensured the spread of the Neoclassical revival throughout Europe and America. The French Neoclassical style would greatly contribute to the monumentalism of the French Revolution, with the accent of both lying in virtue and patriotism.

Neoclassical painting is characterized past the utilize of straight lines, a smooth pigment surface hiding brush work, the depiction of low-cal, a minimal use of color, and the articulate, crisp definition of forms. Its bailiwick affair usually relates to either Greco-Roman history or other cultural attributes, such equally apologue and virtue. The softness of paint application and low-cal-hearted and "frivolous" subject matter that narrate Rococo painting is recognized as the opposite of the Neoclassical style. The works of Jacques-Louis David are widely considered to be the image of Neoclassical painting. Many painters combined aspects of Romanticism with a vaguely Neoclassical fashion before David's success, but these works did not strike any chords with audiences. Typically, the discipline matter of Neoclassical painting consisted of the depiction of events from history, mythological scenes, and the architecture and ruins of ancient Rome.

The Schoolhouse of David

Neoclassical painting gained new momentum with the cracking success of David's Oath of the Horatii at the Paris Salon of 1785. The painting had been commissioned by the royal government and was created in a style that was the perfect combination of arcadian structure and dramatic result. The painting created an uproar, and David was proclaimed to have perfectly divers the Neoclassical taste in his painting style. He thereby became the quintessential painter of the move. In The Oath of the Horatii, the perspective is perpendicular to the picture plane. It is defined by a nighttime arcade backside several classical heroic figures. There is an element of theatre, or staging, that evokes the grandeur of opera. David soon became the leading French painter and enjoyed a great deal of government patronage. Over the grade of his long career, he attracted over 300 students to his studio.

Jacques-Louis David. The Oath of the Horatii (1784): Oil on canvass. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, a Neoclassical painter of history and portraiture, was one of David'due south students. Deeply devoted to classical techniques, Ingres is known to take believed himself to exist a conservator of the mode of the ancient masters, although he afterwards painted subjects in the Romantic style. Examples of his Neoclassical piece of work include the paintings Virgil Reading to Augustus (1812), and Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864). Both David and Ingres made use of the highly organized imagery, direct lines, and conspicuously defined forms that were typical of Neoclassical painting during the 18th century.

Virgil Reading to Augustus by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1812): Oil on canvass. The Walters Art Museum.

While tradition and the rules governing the Académie Française barred women from studying from the nude model (a necessity for executing an effective Neoclassical painting), David believed that women were capable of producing successful art of the style and welcomed many as his students. Amongst the most successful were Marie-Guillemine Benoist, who somewhen won commissions from the Bonaparte family, and Angélique Mongez, who won patrons from as far abroad as Russia.

Self-Portrait by Marie-Guillemine Benoist (1788): In this untraced oil on canvas, Benoist (then Leroulx de la Ville) paints a department from David'due south acclaimed Neoclassical painting of Justinian's blinded general Belisarius begging for alms. Her render of the viewer's gaze and classical attire evidence her conviction as an artist and conformity to artistic trends.

Mongez is best known for being one of the few women to paint monumental subjects that frequently included the male nude, a feat for which hostile critics oft attacked her.

Theseus and Pirithoüs Clearing the Earth of Brigands, Evangelize Two Women from the Hands of Their Abductors by Angélique Mongez (1806): Oil on sail. Hermitage Museum, Petrograd, Russia.

Mongez and Antoine-Jean Gros, another of David's students, tried to carry on the Neoclassical tradition after David'due south death in 1825 but were unsuccessful in confront of the growing popularity of Romanticism.

Neoclassical Sculpture

A reaction against the "frivolity" of the Rococo, Neoclassical sculpture depicts serious subjects influenced by the ancient Greek and Roman past.

Learning Objectives

Explain what motifs are common to Neoclassical sculpture

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Neoclassicism emerged in the 2nd half of the 18th century, following the excavations of the ruins of Pompeii, which sparked renewed interest in the Graeco-Roman earth.
• Neoclassical sculpture is defined by its symmetry, life-sized to monumental scale, and its serious subject area thing.
• The subjects of Neoclassical sculpture ranged from mythological figures to heroes of the by to major contemporary personages.
• Neoclassical sculpture could capture its subject equally either arcadian or in a more than veristic fashion.

Cardinal Terms

• verism: An ancient Roman technique, in which the subject is depicted with "warts and all" realism.

As with painting, Neoclassicism made its mode into sculpture in the second half of the 18th century. In addition to the ethics of the Enlightenment, the excavations of the ruins at Pompeii began to spark a renewed interest in classical culture. Whereas Rococo sculpture consisted of pocket-size asymmetrical objects focusing on themes of dear and gaiety, neoclassical sculpture assumed life-size to awe-inspiring scale and focused on themes of heroism, patriotism, and virtue.

In his tomb sculpture, the Enlightenment philosophe Voltaire is honored in true Neoclassical form. In a style influenced past ancient Roman verism, he appears as an elderly man to accolade his wisdom. He wears a contemporary commoner'south blouse to convey his humbleness, and his robe assumes the appearance of an ancient Roman toga from a altitude. Like his ancient predecessors, his facial expression and his body language propose an air of scholarly seriousness.

Voltaire's tomb.: Panthéon, Paris.

Neoclassical sculptors benefited from an abundance of aboriginal models, albeit Roman copies of Greek bronzes in most cases. The leading Neoclassical sculptors enjoyed much acclaim during their lifetimes. Ane of them was Jean-Antoine Houdon, whose work was mainly portraits, very often equally busts, which do not sacrifice a strong impression of the sitter'southward personality to idealism. His style became more classical every bit his long career continued, and represents a rather smooth progression from Rococo charm to classical dignity. Dissimilar some Neoclassical sculptors he did not insist on his sitters wearing Roman dress, or being unclothed. He portrayed nigh of the smashing figures of the Enlightenment, and traveled to America to produce a statue of George Washington, besides as busts of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and other luminaries of the new commonwealth. His portrait bust of Washington depicts the beginning President of the United States as a stern, yet competent leader, with the influence of Roman verism evident in his wrinkled brow, receding hairline, and double chin.

Bust of George Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdon (c. 1786)

National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC.

The Italian artist Antonio Canova and the Danish creative person Bertel Thorvaldsen were both based in Rome, and besides as portraits produced many ambitious life-size figures and groups. Both represented the strongly idealizing tendency in Neoclassical sculpture.

Hebe by Antonio Canova  (1800–05).: Hermitage State Museum, Petrograd, Russia.

Canova has a lightness and grace, where Thorvaldsen is more severe. The divergence is exemplified in Canova's Hebe (1800–05), whose contrapposto almost mimics lively dance steps as she prepares to pour nectar and ambrosia from a pocket-size amphora into a chalice, and Thorvaldsen'due south Monument to Copernicus (1822-30), whose bailiwick sits upright with a compass and armillary sphere.

Monument to Copernicus by Bertel Thorvaldsen (1822–30).: Bronze. Warsaw, Poland.

Neoclassical Architecture

Neoclassical architecture looks to the classical by of the Graeco-Roman era, the Renaissance, and classicized Baroque to convey a new era based on Enlightenment principles.

Learning Objectives

Place what sets Neoclassical architecture apart from other
movements

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Neoclassical compages was produced past the Neoclassical motility in the mid 18th century. It manifested in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic decoration, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of the classicizing features of Tardily Baroque.
• The get-go phase of Neoclassicism in France is expressed in the "Louis XVI style" of architects like Ange-Jacques Gabriel (Petit Trianon, 1762–68) while the second phase is expressed in the late 18th-century Directoire way.
• Neoclassical architecture emphasizes its planar qualities, rather than sculptural volumes. Projections and recessions and their effects of light and shade are more flat, while sculptural bas- reliefs are flatter and tend to be enframed in friezes, tablets, or panels.
• Structures such as the Arc de Triomphe, the Panthéon in Paris, and Chiswick Firm in London take elements that convey the influence of ancient Greek and Roman architecture, equally well as some influence from the Renaissance and Tardily Baroque periods.

Neoclassical architecture, which began in the mid 18th century, looks to the classical past of the Graeco-Roman era, the Renaissance, and classicized Baroque to convey a new era based on Enlightenment principles. This movement manifested in its details as a reaction against the Rococo mode of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing features of Late Baroque. In its purest grade, Neoclassicism is a mode principally derived from the architecture of Classical Greece and Rome. In grade, Neoclassical architecture emphasizes the wall and maintains divide identities to each of its parts.

The commencement stage of Neoclassicism in France is expressed in the Louis 16 manner of architects like Ange-Jacques Gabriel (Petit Trianon, 1762–68). Ange-Jacques Gabriel was the Premier Architecte at Versailles, and his Neoclassical designs for the regal palace dominated mid 18th century French architecture.

Ange-Jacques Gabriel. Château of the Petit Trianon.: The Petit Trianon in the park at Versailles demonstrates the neoclassical architectural way nether Louis Xvi.

Subsequently the French Revolution, the second phase of Neoclassicism was expressed in the late 18th century Directoire mode. The Directoire style reflected the Revolutionary belief in the values of republican Rome. This mode was a period in the decorative arts, fashion, and particularly furniture blueprint, concurrent with the post-Revolution French Directoire (November 2, 1795–November x, 1799). The way uses Neoclassical architectural forms, minimal carving, planar expanses of highly grained veneers, and practical decorative painting. The Directoire style was primarily established past the architects and designers Charles Percier (1764–1838) and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine (1762–1853), who collaborated on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which is considered allegorical of French neoclassical architecture.

Arc de Triomphe: The Arc de Triomphe, although finished in the early 19th century, is allegorical of French neoclassical compages that dominated the Directoire period.

Though Neoclassical compages employs the same classical vocabulary as Late Baroque architecture, it tends to emphasize its planar qualities rather than its sculptural volumes. Projections, recessions, and their effects on light and shade are more flat. Sculptural bas-reliefs are flatter and tend to be framed in friezes, tablets, or panels. Its clearly articulated private features are isolated rather than interpenetrating, autonomous, and complete in themselves.

Even sacred compages was classicized during the Neoclassical period. The Panthéon, located in the Latin Quarter of Paris, was originally built equally a church dedicated to St. Geneviève and to firm the reliquary châsse containing her relics. Nonetheless, during the French Revolution, the Panthéon was secularized and became the resting place of Enlightenment icons such as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Designer Jacques-Germain Soufflot had the intention of combining the lightness and brightness of the Gothic cathedral with classical principles, simply its function as a mausoleum required the great Gothic windows to be blocked. In 1780, Soufflot died and was replaced by his pupil, Jean-Baptiste Rondelet.

Jacques-Germain Soufflot (original architect) and Jean-Baptiste Rondelet. The Panthéon.: Begun 1758, completed 1790.

Similar to a Roman temple, the Panthéon is entered through a portico that consists of 3 rows of columns (in this case, Corinthian) topped past a Classical pediment. In a manner more closely related to aboriginal Greece, the pediment is adorned with reliefs throughout the triangular infinite. Beneath the pediment, the inscription on the entablature translates as: "To the neat men, the grateful homeland." The dome, on the other hand, is more influenced by Renaissance and Baroque predecessors, such equally St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London.

Intellectually, Neoclassicism was symptomatic of a desire to return to the perceived "purity" of the arts of Rome. The motility was likewise inspired by a more vague perception ("platonic") of Ancient Greek arts and, to a lesser extent, 16th century Renaissance Classicism, which was also a source for academic Late Baroque compages. At that place is an anti-Rococo strain that can be detected in some European architecture of the earlier 18th century. This strain is most vividly represented in the Palladian architecture of Georgian Uk and Republic of ireland.

Lord Burlington. Chiswick House: The design of Chiswick House in West London was influenced past that of Palladio'south domestic architecture, particularly the Villa Rotunda in Venice. The stepped dome and temple façade were clearly influenced past the Roman Pantheon.

The trend toward the classical is as well recognizable in the classicizing vein of Late Baroque architecture in Paris. It is a robust architecture of self-restraint, academically selective now of "the all-time" Roman models. These models were increasingly available for shut study through the medium of architectural engravings of measured drawings of surviving Roman architecture.

French Neoclassicism continued to be a major force in academic fine art through the 19th century and beyond—a constant antithesis to Romanticism or Gothic revivals.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/neoclassicism/

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