Neo classicism

NEO-CLASSICISM(1750-1830 AD)

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

• Meaning “New - Classical”

(Gilbert, 1998, Living with Art, 5 Ed, McGraw Hill, pg499)

• Shows Simplicity, Calmness, Reasoning, Clarity and Enlightenment.

(Gilbert, 1998, Living with Art, 5 Ed, McGraw Hill, pg499)

• Neoclassical Art is a severe and unemotional form of art harkening back to the grandeur of ancient Greece and Rome.

(Adams, 1999, Art Across Time, McGraw Hill, 1st Ed, pg701)

• Its rigidity was a reaction to the overbred Rococo style and the emotional charged Baroque style.

(artcyclopedia.com/history/neoclassicism.html)

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

• It also concerned aesthetics, the acceptance as a model of beauty not to be found in nature, a mental elaboration of perfection.

(Pischel, 1968, A World History of Art, Golden Press, NY, pg575)

• It concerned taste, hence, the importance assigned to decoration, furniture, and even the changing fashions of clothes.

(Pischel, 1968, A World History of Art, Golden Press, NY, pg575)

• It is also concerned knowledge, the interest and enthusiasm aroused by archaeology, with its discoveries of the Greek, Roman, Etruscan and Egyptian worlds.

(Pischel, 1968, A World History of Art, Golden Press, NY, pg575)

FACTORS AND EVENTS

• Neoclassicism arose partly as a reaction against the sensuous and frivolously decorative Rococo style that had dominated European art from the 1720s on. But an even more profound stimulus was the new and more scientific interest in classical antiquity that arose in the 18th century.

(Adams, 1999, Art Across Time, McGraw Hill, pg699)

• During the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Western Europe, several styles completed for primacy. Paris had become the undisputed center of the western art world, but Rome was still a significant artistic force.

(Adams, 1999, Art Across Time, McGraw Hill, pg699)

FACTORS AND EVENTS

• When the French Baroque and Rococo started to fade, Louis IV had pronounced classical flavor; from it evolved the neoclassical style, which was adopted by leaders of the French Revolution.

(Adams, 1999, Art Across Time, McGraw Hill, pg699)

• Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres was a pupil of Jacques Louis David

(Gilbert, 1998, Living with Art, 5 Ed, McGraw Hill, pg499)

• It was strength purity and balance of ideal classicism. It was, however an idea which could not be a slavish imitation of re-emerging classical antiquity: it could not be attained directly, nor by making use of the Italian Renaissance.

(Pischel, 1968, A World History of Art, Golden Press, NY, pg575)

INFLUENTIAL PERSONS

ARCHITECTS

• Robert Smirke (1780-1867)

• Robert Adam (1728-1792)

SCULPTORS

• Antonio Canova (1757-1822)

• Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828)

• Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844)

PAINTERS

• Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867)

• Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)

• Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779)

NEO-CLASSICAL WORKS

PAINTINGS

The Oath of Horatii

Jacques-Louis David

Oil on Canvas

11ft x 14ft (3.35 x 4.27 m)

PAINTINGS

The Death of Socrates The Death of Marat

SCULPTURE

Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss

Artist: Antonio Canova

Medium: Marble

First Version: 1787-1793

Dimension: 155cm x 168cm (61in x 68in)

Location: Louvre, Paris; Hermitage

Museum, Saint Petersburg

SCULPTURES

Hebe by Canova (1800–1805) Voltaire by Jean-Antoine Houdon, 1778

ARCHITECTURE

L'église de la Madeleine

ARCHITECTURE

The Cathedral of Vilnius Berlin Altes Museum, Friedrich Thiele, 1830