Neoclassicism: what it is and characteristics of this artistic movement

In 1748, an event was about to end the aristocratic Rococo world. That year the ruins of Pompeii were discovered, which encouraged those already sympathetic to Neoclassicism to promote an art inspired by classical aesthetics and to fight against the style. decadent of the beginning of the century.

To tell the truth, classical art had never been completely forgotten. However, based on the findings of the Roman cities buried by Vesuvius, and spurred on by the grand tour, the route through Italy that had been taking place since the 17th century, artists began to be inspired by the works of the antiquity that, in the end, served as the perfect vehicle of expression for the French Revolution and the subsequent empire Napoleonic.

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 scene at the end of the 18th century, especially in France.

Neoclassicism and the love of the classic

The quintessential neoclassical painter, Jacques-Louis David, was born precisely the year Pompeii was discovered, which can be assumed to be an omen. That same year, the 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 which, in their opinion, was aristocratic and empty. The encyclopedist Denis Diderot (1713-1784) vigorously advocated a return to an art moral and virtuous, much more in line with the philosophical ideals of the Enlightenment. And although, in reality, the essence of the rococo (inspired by nature, comfort and homely intimacy) was not so far from the precepts of the enlightened, in intellectual circles it was seen as a style that was too syrupy and, above all, too linked to the aristocracy of the Old Regime.

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The art of the Revolution

Neoclassicism is born, then, not only from a love for the classical and a desire to return to the harmonious orders of Greece and Rome, but also from a very specific social context: society immediately prior to the French Revolution. It is precisely from the outbreak of this and the subsequent promulgation of the Republic that art neoclassical takes on an extraordinary role (actually, an absolute role) in the panorama French artistic.

In the new regime championed by the bourgeoisie there is no longer a place for art of nobles What did the rococo mean? Republican values ​​are now exhibited, marked by deep 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). Formed in the workshop of Joseph-Maria Vien (1716-1809), the aesthetic of the first David still has an evident rococo air. If we take the work of him The fight of minerva vs mars, dated in 1771, we will observe that its pastel colors and his rapid and 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 draw their 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 his group of his exalted. In fact, one of David's most famous paintings is the famous Marath's death (1793), which the artist made in honor of Jean-Paul Marat, one of the bloodiest revolutionaries, assassinated at the hands of the young Charlotte Corday.

David's neoclassical painting, with its forceful figures resembling Greek reliefs, fits like a glove for the ideals of the new French politics. The solemnity of her scenes, inspired by mythology and classical history, convey the Roman virtus, the clearest example of which is her 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 Academy French (only four female representatives were admitted) paid dearly for her friendship with Queen Mary Antoinette. Threatened and persecuted, she had to flee France and take refuge in other European courts, such as Russia, where she received commissions from famous people. Lebrun's style still has rococo overtones, especially in her soft tones, but her portraits, especially those from the later period, have the solemnity of classical statuary.

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The survival of Italy

We have already commented that even in the times of the Rococo and the Baroque the classical ideals had not been forgotten. In fact, it is a constant in European art; the direct inspiration of the Greek and Roman models.

The call grand tour 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. At as early a date as 1670 the Voyage d'Italie, by Richard Lassels (1603-1668) and, a few decades later, in 1764, the distinguished historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) published his History of the art of Antiquity, a book that has been considered one of the starting guns of Neoclassicism.

In fact, Neoclassicism cannot be understood without three illustrious names: Winckelmann, a famous collector of antiquities who promulgated the theories by which he urged a return to Greece and Rome; David, the painter of the Revolution and, finally, Antonio Canova (1757-1822), the great sculptor of Neoclassicism, with such important works as Eros and Psyche (1793), Perseus with the head of Medusa (1800-1801) or the venus victrix (1807), a depiction of Napoleon's sister Paulina Bonaparte reclining half-naked on a divan.

Canova's work recovers classical models and takes neoclassical sculpture to its zenith, but Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), Danish artist, in his sculptures he follows Winckelmann's theories with greater precision and fidelity. In this way, while Canova's style is warmer and more passionate, Thorvaldsen's maintains a cold and solemn classical aesthetic.

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Neoclassicism or Romanticism?

Just as Neoclassicism triumphed in countries like France and Italy, it was not so in the northern European territories., with the exception, perhaps, of the English case. In the British Isles we find authors as important as Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the most academic of artists English, great friend of another great British neoclassical artist: Angelica Kaufmann (1741-1807), highly praised by himself Winckelmann.

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 stream of Sturm und Drang, which name (storm and momentum) is already quite eloquent.

He Sturm und Drang he was in 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, intuition prevail. In painting, the most important representative of this German 18th century is Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), whose canvases depict gloomy, fantastic and almost dreamlike environments.

There are, however, curious cases, such as that of the French Jean-Dominique-Auguste Ingres (1780-1867), whose long life allowed him to experiment with various artistic currents. A disciple of David, the neoclassical among neoclassicals, Ingres began painting in the classicist academic style, but more later he will abandon the neoclassical aesthetic and will be inspired by other sources, such as the artists of the Quattrocento Italian. However, the absolute predominance that drawing has over color in all of his work is a clear indication that Ingres drank from neoclassical sources in his apprenticeship.

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 Germanic will survive and spread throughout Europe under the name of Romanticism.