Neoclassicism: What It Is And Characteristics Of This Artistic Movement
In 1748, an event was about to put an end to the aristocratic Rococo world. That year the ruins of Pompeii were discovered, which encouraged those already sympathizers of Neoclassicism to promote art inspired by classical aesthetics and fight against the style. decadent from the beginning of the century.
In truth, classical art had never been completely forgotten. However, based on the findings of the Roman cities buried by Vesuvius, and spurred by the Grand Tourthe route through Italy that had been carried out since the 17th century, artists began to be inspired by the works of antiquity which, in the end, served as a perfect vehicle of expression for the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic empire.
What was Neoclassicism? What were its characteristics? Who are its main authors? In this article, we invite you to take a brief tour of the art that dominated the cultural panorama of the late 18th century, especially in France.
The neoclassical painter par excellence, Jacques-Louis David, was born precisely the year in which Pompeii was discovered, which can be assumed to be an omen. That same year, Rococo, the refined style that had reigned in European courts since the beginning of the century, was launching its swan song.
For a long time, artists and intellectuals had been trying to put an end to this art that, in their opinion, was aristocratic and empty. The encyclopedist Denis Diderot (1713-1784) strongly promoted the return to an art moral and virtuousmuch more in line with the philosophical ideals of the Enlightenment And although, in reality, the essence of Rococo (inspired by nature, comfort and home intimacy) was not so far from the precepts of the Enlightenment, in intellectual circles it was seen as a style that was too syrupy and, above all, , too closely linked to the aristocracy of the Old Regime.
The art of the Revolution
Neoclassicism is born, therefore, not only from a love for the classic and a desire to return to the harmonious orders of Greece and Rome, but also from a very specific social context: the society immediately before the French Revolution It is precisely after the outbreak of this and the subsequent promulgation of the Republic that neoclassical art acquired an extraordinary prominence (in reality, an absolute prominence) in the French artistic panorama.
In the new regime championed by the bourgeoisie there is no longer any place for noble art what rococo meant. Republican values are now on display, marked by profound austerity and an almost martial rigor, directly inspired by Rome. Later, Napoleon’s empire would take up these ideas and take the neoclassical style to its maximum expression.
The great representative of French Neoclassicism, first of the revolution and then of the empire, is Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). Trained in the workshop of Joseph-Maria Vien (1716-1809), the aesthetics of the first David still have an evident Rococo air. If we take his work The Struggle of Minerva vs. Marsdated 1771, we will observe that its pastel colors and quick, loose brushstrokes are very reminiscent of the style of painters such as Fragonard or Boucher.
David’s trip to Italy in 1775 changes everything. He himself confessed that his stay in Rome was like “a cataract operation.” With this original expression the painter captured what his contact with classical models had represented: the absolute certainty that it was in them that artists should take inspiration from him.
David is a decidedly revolutionary painter. And not only because he puts his art at the service of the revolution and the Republic, but because ideologically he follows the guidelines of Robespierre and that of his group of exalted ones. In fact, one of David’s most famous paintings is the famous The death of Marat (1793), which the artist made in honor of Jean-Paul Marat, one of the bloodiest revolutionaries, murdered at the hands of the young Charlotte Corday.
David’s neoclassical painting, with its forceful figures similar to Greek reliefs, fits the ideals of the new French politics like a glove. The solemnity of his scenes, inspired by mythology and classical history, transmit Roman virtus, the clearest example of which is his famous painting The Oath of the Horatii (1784), a painting that, although pre-revolutionary, already perfectly captures the martial, cold and austere aura that the new order will have
Not all French artists subscribed to the new revolutionary reality. Élisabeth Vigée Lebrun (1755-1842), by the way, one of the few women who were part of the French Academy (only four female representatives were admitted) paid dearly for her friendship with Queen Marie Antoinette. Threatened and persecuted, she had to flee France and take refuge in other courts in Europe, such as Russia, where she received commissions from illustrious people. Lebrun’s style still has Rococo overtones, especially in her sweet tones, but her portraits, especially those from the later period, have the solemnity of classical statuary.
The survival of Italy
We have already commented that even in the times of Rococo and Baroque, classical ideals had not been forgotten. In fact, it is a constant in European art; direct inspiration from Greek and Roman models.
The call Grand Tour It is a key factor to understand the rise of Neoclassicism Since the 17th century, the children of wealthy families traveled to the Italian peninsula and toured the most important cities, where they admired the Roman remains and were seduced by them. The discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum only increased this fervor. As early as 1670, the Voyage d’Italieby Richard Lassels (1603-1668) and, a few decades later, in 1764, the distinguished historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) published his History of ancient arta book that has been considered one of the starting signals of Neoclassicism.
In fact, Neoclassicism cannot be understood without three illustrious names: Winckelmann, a famous collector of antiquities who promulgated the theories urging a return to Greece and Rome; David, the painter of the Revolution and, finally, Antonio Canova (1757-1822), the great sculptor of Neoclassicism, with works as important as Eros and Psyche (1793), Perseus with the head of Medusa (1800-1801) or the Venus Victrix (1807), a depiction of Napoleon’s sister, Pauline Bonaparte, reclining half-naked on a couch.
Canova’s work recovers classical models and takes neoclassical sculpture to its zenith, but Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), a Danish artist, follows Winckelmann’s theories with greater precision and fidelity in his sculptures. In this way, while Canova’s style is warmer and passionate, Thorvaldsen’s maintains a cold and solemn classical aesthetic.
Neoclassicism or Romanticism?
Just as Neoclassicism triumphed in countries like France and Italy, this was not the case in the territories of northern Europe, with the exception, perhaps, of the English case. In the British Isles we find such important authors as Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the most academic of the English artists, a great friend of another great British neoclassical artist: Angelica Kaufmann (1741-1807), highly praised by Winckelmann himself.
However, Germany and the other northern territories were a notable exception. In these latitudes, Neoclassicism went practically unnoticed, partly for cultural reasons (the German tradition was very far from Greco-Roman history) and, on the other, because of the newborn current of the Sturm und Drangwhich name (Storm and momentum) is already quite eloquent.
He Sturm und Drang was at the antipodes of Neoclassicism The movement, championed by writers such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), constitutes a kind of pre-romanticism, where feelings, dreams, and intuition take precedence. In painting, the most important representative of this Germanic 18th century is Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), in whose canvases gloomy, fantastic and almost dreamlike environments are captured.
There are, however, curious cases, such as that of the Frenchman Jean-Dominique-Auguste Ingres (1780-1867), whose long existence allowed him to experiment with various artistic currents. A disciple of David, the neoclassical among neoclassicals, Ingres began painting in the academic classicist style, but later he abandoned the neoclassical aesthetic and was inspired by other sources, such as the artists of the Italian Quattrocento. However, the absolute predominance that drawing has over color in all of his work is a clear indication that Ingres drew on neoclassical sources in his learning.
We can affirm that Neoclassicism only triumphed in countries with a strong Roman cultural base But in the first decades of the 19th century, when, after the fall of Napoleon, this style began to fade, the Sturm und Drang Germanicism will survive and expand throughout Europe under the name of Romanticism.
