Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-

classicism) was a Western cultural
movement in the decorative and visual
arts, literature, theatre, music, and
architecture that drew inspiration from the
art and culture of classical antiquity.
Neoclassicism was born in Rome largely
thanks to the writings of Johann Joachim
Winckelmann, at the time of the
rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum,
but its popularity spread across Europe as
a generation of European art students
finished their Grand Tour and returned
from Italy to their home countries with
newly rediscovered Greco-Roman
ideals.[1][2][3][4] The main Neoclassical
movement coincided with the 18th-century
Age of Enlightenment, and continued into
the early 19th century, laterally competing
with Romanticism. In architecture, the
style continued throughout the 19th, 20th
and up to the 21st century.[5][6]
 Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss; by Antonio
Canova; 1787; marble; 155 cm × 168 cm; Louvre

Charles Towneley in his sculpture gallery; by

Johann Zoffany; 1782; oil on canvas; height: 127
cm, width: 102 cm; Towneley Hall Art Gallery and
Museum, Burnley, UK

European Neoclassicism in the visual arts

began c. 1760 in opposition to the then-
dominant Rococo style. Rococo
architecture emphasizes grace,
ornamentation and asymmetry;
Neoclassical architecture is based on the
principles of simplicity and symmetry,
which were seen as virtues of the arts of
Rome and Ancient Greece, and were more
immediately drawn from 16th-century
Renaissance Classicism. Each "neo"-
classicism selects some models among
the range of possible classics that are
available to it, and ignores others. The
Neoclassical writers and talkers, patrons
and collectors, artists and sculptors of
1765–1830 paid homage to an idea of the
generation of Phidias, but the sculpture
examples they actually embraced were
more likely to be Roman copies of
Hellenistic sculptures. They ignored both
Archaic Greek art and the works of Late
Antiquity. The "Rococo" art of ancient
Palmyra came as a revelation, through
engravings in Wood's The Ruins of
Palmyra. Even Greece was all-but-
unvisited, a rough backwater of the
Ottoman Empire, dangerous to explore, so
Neoclassicists' appreciation of Greek
architecture was mediated through
drawings and engravings, which subtly
smoothed and regularized, "corrected" and
"restored" the monuments of Greece, not
always consciously.
The Empire style, a second phase of
Neoclassicism in architecture and the
decorative arts, had its cultural centre in
Paris in the Napoleonic era. Especially in
architecture, but also in other fields,
Neoclassicism remained a force long after
the early 19th century, with periodic waves
of revivalism into the 20th and even the
21st centuries, especially in the United
States and Russia.

History
Neoclassicism is a revival of the many
styles and spirit of classic antiquity
inspired directly from the classical
period,[7] which coincided and reflected the
developments in philosophy and other
areas of the Age of Enlightenment, and
was initially a reaction against the
excesses of the preceding Rococo style.[8]
While the movement is often described as
the opposed counterpart of Romanticism,
this is a great over-simplification that
tends not to be sustainable when specific
artists or works are considered. The case
of the supposed main champion of late
Neoclassicism, Ingres, demonstrates this
especially well.[9] The revival can be traced
to the establishment of formal
archaeology.[10][11]
 Johann Joachim
Winckelmann, often called
"the father of archaeology"[12]

The writings of Johann Joachim

Winckelmann were important in shaping
this movement in both architecture and
the visual arts. His books Thoughts on the
Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and
Sculpture (1750) and Geschichte der
Kunst des Alterthums ("History of Ancient
Art", 1764) were the first to distinguish
sharply between Ancient Greek and
Roman art, and define periods within
Greek art, tracing a trajectory from growth
to maturity and then imitation or
decadence that continues to have
influence to the present day. Winckelmann
believed that art should aim at "noble
simplicity and calm grandeur",[13] and
praised the idealism of Greek art, in which
he said we find "not only nature at its most
beautiful but also something beyond
nature, namely certain ideal forms of its
beauty, which, as an ancient interpreter of
Plato teaches us, come from images
created by the mind alone". The theory
was very far from new in Western art, but
his emphasis on close copying of Greek
models was: "The only way for us to
become great or if this be possible,
inimitable, is to imitate the ancients".[14]

The Industrial Revolution saw global

transition of human economy towards
more efficient and stable manufacturing
processes.[15] There was tremendous
material advancement and increased
prosperity.[16] With the advent of the Grand
Tour, a fad of collecting antiquities began
that laid the foundations of many great
collections spreading a Neoclassical
revival throughout Europe.[17]
"Neoclassicism" in each art implies a
particular canon of a "classical" model.
In English, the term "Neoclassicism" is
used primarily of the visual arts; the
similar movement in English literature,
which began considerably earlier, is called
Augustan literature. This, which had been
dominant for several decades, was
beginning to decline by the time
Neoclassicism in the visual arts became
fashionable. Though terms differ, the
situation in French literature was similar. In
music, the period saw the rise of classical
music, and "Neoclassicism" is used of
20th-century developments. However, the
operas of Christoph Willibald Gluck
represented a specifically Neoclassical
approach, spelt out in his preface to the
published score of Alceste (1769), which
aimed to reform opera by removing
ornamentation, increasing the role of the
chorus in line with Greek tragedy, and
using simpler unadorned melodic lines.[18]

Anton Raphael Mengs; Judgement of

Paris; circa 1757; oil on canvas;
height: 226 cm, width: 295 cm, bought
by Catherine the Great from the
studio; Hermitage Museum, Saint
Petersburg, Russia

The term "Neoclassical" was not invented

until the mid-19th century, and at the time
the style was described by such terms as
"the true style", "reformed" and "revival";
what was regarded as being revived
varying considerably. Ancient models were
certainly very much involved, but the style
could also be regarded as a revival of the
Renaissance, and especially in France as a
return to the more austere and noble
Baroque of the age of Louis XIV, for which
a considerable nostalgia had developed as
France's dominant military and political
position started a serious decline.[19]
Ingres's coronation portrait of Napoleon
even borrowed from Late Antique consular
diptychs and their Carolingian revival, to
the disapproval of critics.

Neoclassicism was strongest in

architecture, sculpture and the decorative
arts, where classical models in the same
medium were relatively numerous and
accessible; examples from ancient
painting that demonstrated the qualities
that Winckelmann's writing found in
sculpture were and are lacking.
Winckelmann was involved in the
dissemination of knowledge of the first
large Roman paintings to be discovered, at
Pompeii and Herculaneum and, like most
contemporaries except for Gavin Hamilton,
was unimpressed by them, citing Pliny the
Younger's comments on the decline of
painting in his period.[20]
As for painting, Greek painting was utterly
lost: Neoclassicist painters imaginatively
revived it, partly through bas-relief friezes,
mosaics and pottery painting, and partly
through the examples of painting and
decoration of the High Renaissance of
Raphael's generation, frescos in Nero's
Domus Aurea, Pompeii and Herculaneum,
and through renewed admiration of
Nicolas Poussin. Much "Neoclassical"
painting is more classicizing in subject
matter than in anything else. A fierce, but
often very badly informed, dispute raged
for decades over the relative merits of
Greek and Roman art, with Winckelmann
and his fellow Hellenists generally being
on the winning side.[21]
Painting and printmaking

Fantasy View with the Pantheon and other

Monuments of Ancient Rome; by Giovanni
Paolo Panini; 1737; oil on canvas; 98.9 x
137.49 cm; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
US
 The ancient Capitol ascended by
approximately one hundred steps . . .; by
Giovanni Battista Piranesi; c.1750; etching;
size of the entire sheet: 33.5 × 49.4 cm;
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery; by
Joseph Wright of Derby; c.1766; oil on
canvas; 1.47 x 2.03 m; Derby Museum and
Art Gallery, Derby, England[22]
The Attributes of the Arts; by Anne Vallayer-
Coster; 1769; oil on canvas; 90 x 121 cm;
Louvre[23]
Ariadne Abandoned; by Angelica Kauffmann;
before 1782; oil on canvas; 88 x 70.5 cm;
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden,
Germany[24]
Oath of the Horatii; by Jacques-Louis David;
1784; oil on canvas; 3.3 x 4.27 m; Louvre[25]
Self-Portrait with a Harp; by Rose-Adélaïde
Ducreux; 1791; oil on canvas; 193 x
128.9 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
 Achilles mourning Patrocles; after John
Flaxman; 1795; engraving after a drawing;
unknown size; unknown location
Portrait of Citizen Belley, Ex-Representative
of the Colonies; by Anne-Louis Girodet;
1796–1797; oil on canvas; 1.59 x 1.11 m;
Musée national du château et de Trianon,
Versailles, France[26]
Cupid and Psyche; by François Gérard; 1798;
oil on canvas; 186 x 132 cm; Louvre[27]
Julie Lebrun as Flora; by Élisabeth Vigée Le
Brun; c.1799; oil on canvas; 129.5 x 97.8 cm;
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida,
US
 Portrait of a Black Woman, by Marie-
Guillemine Benoist; 1800; oil on canvas; 81 x
65 cm; Louvre[28]
 Melancholy; by Constance Marie
Charpentier; 1801; oil on canvas; 130 x 165;
Musée de Picardie, Amiens, France[29]
 Portrait of Charlotte du Val d'Ognes; by
Marie-Denise Villers; 1801; oil on canvas;
161.3 x 128.6 cm; Metropolitan Museum of
Art[30]
Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of
Jaffa; by Antoine-Jean Gros; 1804; oil on
canvas; 5.2 x 7.2 m; Louvre[31]
Portrait of Empress Josephine; by Pierre-
Paul Prud'hon; 1805; oil on canvas; 244 x
179 cm; Louvre[32]
 Napoleon I on His Imperial Throne; by Jean-
Auguste-Dominique Ingres; 1806; oil on
canvas; 2.62 x 1.62 m; Army Museum,
Paris[25]

It is hard to recapture the radical and

exciting nature of early Neoclassical
painting for contemporary audiences; it
now strikes even those writers favourably
inclined to it as "insipid" and "almost
entirely uninteresting to us"—some of
Kenneth Clark's comments on Anton
Raphael Mengs' ambitious Parnassus at
the Villa Albani,[33] by the artist whom his
friend Winckelmann described as "the
greatest artist of his own, and perhaps of
later times".[34] The drawings,
subsequently turned into prints, of John
Flaxman used very simple line drawing
(thought to be the purest classical
medium[35]) and figures mostly in profile to
depict The Odyssey and other subjects,
and once "fired the artistic youth of
Europe" but are now "neglected",[36] while
the history paintings of Angelica
Kauffman, mainly a portraitist, are
described as having "an unctuous
softness and tediousness" by Fritz
Novotny.[37] Rococo frivolity and Baroque
movement had been stripped away but
many artists struggled to put anything in
their place, and in the absence of ancient
examples for history painting, other than
the Greek vases used by Flaxman, Raphael
tended to be used as a substitute model,
as Winckelmann recommended.

The work of other artists, who could not

easily be described as insipid, combined
aspects of Romanticism with a generally
Neoclassical style, and form part of the
history of both movements. The German-
Danish painter Asmus Jacob Carstens
finished very few of the large mythological
works that he planned, leaving mostly
drawings and colour studies which often
succeed in approaching Winckelmann's
prescription of "noble simplicity and calm
grandeur".[38] Unlike Carstens' unrealized
schemes, the etchings of Giovanni Battista
Piranesi were numerous and profitable,
and taken back by those making the Grand
Tour to all parts of Europe. His main
subject matter was the buildings and ruins
of Rome, and he was more stimulated by
the ancient than the modern. The
somewhat disquieting atmosphere of
many of his Vedute (views) becomes
dominant in his series of 16 prints of
Carceri d'Invenzione ("Imaginary Prisons")
whose "oppressive cyclopean architecture"
conveys "dreams of fear and
frustration".[39] The Swiss-born Johann
Heinrich Füssli spent most of his career in
England, and while his fundamental style
was based on Neoclassical principles, his
subjects and treatment more often
reflected the "Gothic" strain of
Romanticism, and sought to evoke drama
and excitement.

Neoclassicism in painting gained a new

sense of direction with the sensational
success of Jacques-Louis David's Oath of
the Horatii at the Paris Salon of 1785.
Despite its evocation of republican virtues,
this was a commission by the royal
government, which David insisted on
painting in Rome. David managed to
combine an idealist style with drama and
forcefulness. The central perspective is
perpendicular to the picture plane, made
more emphatic by the dim arcade behind,
against which the heroic figures are
disposed as in a frieze, with a hint of the
artificial lighting and staging of opera, and
the classical colouring of Nicolas Poussin.
David rapidly became the leader of French
art, and after the French Revolution
became a politician with control of much
government patronage in art. He managed
to retain his influence in the Napoleonic
period, turning to frankly propagandistic
works, but had to leave France for exile in
Brussels at the Bourbon Restoration.[40]

David's many students included Jean-

Auguste-Dominique Ingres, who saw
himself as a classicist throughout his long
career, despite a mature style that has an
equivocal relationship with the main
current of Neoclassicism, and many later
diversions into Orientalism and the
Troubadour style that are hard to
distinguish from those of his unabashedly
Romantic contemporaries, except by the
primacy his works always give to drawing.
He exhibited at the Salon for over 60 years,
from 1802 into the beginnings of
Impressionism, but his style, once formed,
changed little.[41]
Sculpture

An Arch-Rascal (no. 33 in a character head

series); by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt; after
1770; alabaster; height: 38 cm;
Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna,
Austria[42]
Mars and Venus; by Johan Tobias Sergel;
c.1775; marble; height: 93 cm;
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden[43]

Mercury or The Trade; by Augustin Pajou;

1780; marble; height: 196 cm; Louvre
The Winter; by Jean-Antoine Houdon; 1783;
marble; height: 145 cm; Musée Fabre,
Montpellier, France[44]
Cephalus and Aurora; by John Flaxman;
1789–1790; probably marble; unknown
dimensions; Lady Lever Art Gallery,
Merseyside, England
The Princesses Louisa and Friderica of
Prussia; by Johann Gottfried Schadow;
1795–1797; marble; height: 172 cm;
Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany[43]
Venus Victrix; by Antonio Canova; 1804–
1808; marble; length: 200 cm; Galleria
Borghese, Rome[45]
The Three Graces; by Antonio Canova; 1813–
1816; marble; height: 1.82 m; Hermitage
Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia[46]
 Ganymede and Jupiter; by Bertel
Thorvaldsen; 1817; marble; height: 94 cm;
Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen,
Denmark[43]

If Neoclassical painting suffered from a

lack of ancient models, Neoclassical
sculpture tended to suffer from an excess
of them. Although examples of actual
Greek sculpture of the "Classical Period"
beginning in about 500 BC were then very
few; the most highly regarded works were
mostly Roman copies.[47] The leading
Neoclassical sculptors enjoyed huge
reputations in their own day, but are now
less regarded, with the exception of Jean-
Antoine Houdon, whose work was mainly
portraits, very often as busts, which do not
sacrifice a strong impression of the sitter's
personality to idealism. His style became
more classical as his long career
continued, and represents a rather smooth
progression from Rococo charm to
classical dignity. Unlike some Neoclassical
sculptors he did not insist on his sitters
wearing Roman dress, or being unclothed.
He portrayed most of the notable figures
of the Enlightenment, and travelled to
America to produce a statue of George
Washington, as well as busts of Thomas
Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and other
founders of the new republic.[48][49]

Antonio Canova and the Dane Bertel

Thorvaldsen were both based in Rome,
and as well as portraits produced many
ambitious life-size figures and groups;
both represented the strongly idealizing
tendency in Neoclassical sculpture.
Canova has a lightness and grace, where
Thorvaldsen is more severe; the difference
is exemplified in their respective groups of
the Three Graces.[50] All these, and
Flaxman, were still active in the 1820s, and
Romanticism was slow to impact
sculpture, where versions of
Neoclassicism remained the dominant
style for most of the 19th century.

An early Neoclassicist in sculpture was the

Swede Johan Tobias Sergel.[51] John
Flaxman was also, or mainly, a sculptor,
mostly producing severely classical reliefs
that are comparable in style to his prints;
he also designed and modelled
Neoclassical ceramics for Josiah
Wedgwood for several years. Johann
Gottfried Schadow and his son Rudolph,
one of the few Neoclassical sculptors to
die young, were the leading German
artists,[52] with Franz Anton von Zauner in
Austria. The late Baroque Austrian
sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt
turned to Neoclassicism in mid-career,
shortly before he appears to have suffered
some kind of mental crisis, after which he
retired to the country and devoted himself
to the highly distinctive "character heads"
of bald figures pulling extreme facial
expressions.[53] Like Piranesi's Carceri,
these enjoyed a great revival of interest
during the age of psychoanalysis in the
early 20th century. The Dutch Neoclassical
sculptor Mathieu Kessels studied with
Thorvaldsen and worked almost
exclusively in Rome.

Since prior to the 1830s the United States

did not have a sculpture tradition of its
own, save in the areas of tombstones,
weathervanes and ship figureheads,[54] the
European Neoclassical manner was
adopted there, and it was to hold sway for
decades and is exemplified in the
sculptures of Horatio Greenough, Harriet
Hosmer, Hiram Powers, Randolph Rogers
and William Henry Rinehart.
Architecture and the
decorative arts

Hôtel Gouthière, Rue Pierre-Bullet no. 6, Paris,

possibly by J. Métivier, 1780[55]

"The Etruscan room", from Potsdam, Germany,

c.1840, illustration by Friedrich Wilhelm Klose

Neoclassical art was traditional and new,

historical and modern, conservative and
progressive all at the same time.[56]
Neoclassicism first gained influence in
England and France, through a generation
of French art students trained in Rome and
influenced by the writings of Winckelmann,
and it was quickly adopted by progressive
circles in other countries such as Sweden,
Poland and Russia. At first, classicizing
decor was grafted onto familiar European
forms, as in the interiors for Catherine II's
lover, Count Orlov, designed by an Italian
architect with a team of Italian stuccadori:
only the isolated oval medallions like
cameos and the bas-relief overdoors hint
of Neoclassicism; the furnishings are fully
Italian Rococo.
A second Neoclassic wave, more severe,
more studied (through the medium of
engravings) and more consciously
archaeological, is associated with the
height of the Napoleonic Empire. In
France, the first phase of Neoclassicism
was expressed in the "Louis XVI style", and
the second in the styles called "Directoire"
or Empire. The Rococo style remained
popular in Italy until the Napoleonic
regimes brought the new archaeological
classicism, which was embraced as a
political statement by young, progressive,
urban Italians with republican leanings.
In the decorative arts, Neoclassicism is
exemplified in Empire furniture made in
Paris, London, New York, Berlin; in
Biedermeier furniture made in Austria; in
Karl Friedrich Schinkel's museums in
Berlin, Sir John Soane's Bank of England in
London and the newly built "capitol" in
Washington, D.C.; and in Wedgwood's bas
reliefs and "black basaltes" vases. The
style was international; Scots architect
Charles Cameron created palatial
Italianate interiors for the German-born
Catherine II the Great, in Russian St.
Petersburg.
Indoors, Neoclassicism made a discovery
of the genuine classic interior, inspired by
the rediscoveries at Pompeii and
Herculaneum. These had begun in the late
1740s, but only achieved a wide audience
in the 1760s,[57] with the first luxurious
volumes of tightly controlled distribution
of Le Antichità di Ercolano (The Antiquities
of Herculaneum). The antiquities of
Herculaneum showed that even the most
classicizing interiors of the Baroque, or the
most "Roman" rooms of William Kent were
based on basilica and temple exterior
architecture turned outside in, hence their
often bombastic appearance to modern
eyes: pedimented window frames turned
into gilded mirrors, fireplaces topped with
temple fronts. The new interiors sought to
recreate an authentically Roman and
genuinely interior vocabulary.

Techniques employed in the style included

flatter, lighter motifs, sculpted in low
frieze-like relief or painted in monotones
en camaïeu ("like cameos"), isolated
medallions or vases or busts or bucrania
or other motifs, suspended on swags of
laurel or ribbon, with slender arabesques
against backgrounds, perhaps, of
"Pompeiian red" or pale tints, or stone
colors. The style in France was initially a
Parisian style, the Goût grec ("Greek
style"), not a court style; when Louis XVI
acceded to the throne in 1774, Marie
Antoinette, his fashion-loving Queen,
brought the "Louis XVI" style to court.
However, there was no real attempt to
employ the basic forms of Roman
furniture until around the turn of the
century, and furniture-makers were more
likely to borrow from ancient architecture,
just as silversmiths were more likely to
take from ancient pottery and stone-
carving than metalwork: "Designers and
craftsmen ... seem to have taken an
almost perverse pleasure in transferring
motifs from one medium to another".[58]
 Château de Malmaison, 1800, room for the
Empress Joséphine, on the cusp between
Directoire style and Empire style

From about 1800 a fresh influx of Greek

architectural examples, seen through the
medium of etchings and engravings, gave
a new impetus to Neoclassicism, the
Greek Revival. At the same time the
Empire style was a more grandiose wave
of Neoclassicism in architecture and the
decorative arts. Mainly based on Imperial
Roman styles, it originated in, and took its
name from, the rule of Napoleon in the
First French Empire, where it was intended
to idealize Napoleon's leadership and the
French state. The style corresponds to the
more bourgeois Biedermeier style in the
German-speaking lands, Federal style in
the United States,[57] the Regency style in
Britain, and the Napoleon style in Sweden.
According to the art historian Hugh
Honour "so far from being, as is
sometimes supposed, the culmination of
the Neoclassical movement, the Empire
marks its rapid decline and transformation
back once more into a mere antique
revival, drained of all the high-minded
ideas and force of conviction that had
inspired its masterpieces".[59] An earlier
phase of the style was called the Adam
style in Great Britain and "Louis Seize", or
Louis XVI, in France.

Neoclassicism continued to be a major

force in academic art through the 19th
century and beyond—a constant antithesis
to Romanticism or Gothic revivals —,
although from the late 19th century on it
had often been considered anti-modern, or
even reactionary, in influential critical
circles. The centres of several European
cities, notably St. Petersburg and Munich,
came to look much like museums of
Neoclassical architecture.
Gothic revival architecture (often linked
with the Romantic cultural movement), a
style originating in the 18th century which
grew in popularity throughout the 19th
century, contrasted Neoclassicism. Whilst
Neoclassicism was characterized by Greek
and Roman-influenced styles, geometric
lines and order, Gothic revival architecture
placed an emphasis on medieval-looking
buildings, often made to have a rustic,
"romantic" appearance.
France

Louis XVI style (1760–1789)

Central pavilion of the École Militaire, Paris,

1752, by Ange-Jacques Gabriel[60]
 Panthéon, Paris, by Jacques-Germain
Soufflot and Jean-Baptiste Rondelet, 1758–
1790[61]

Hôtel de la Marine, Paris, by Ange-Jacques

Gabriel, 1761-1770[62]
 Facade of the Petit Trianon, Versailles,
France, by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, 1764[63]

Staircase of the Petit Trianon, by Ange-

Jacques Gabriel, 1764[63]
Interior of the Petit Trianon, by Ange-Jacques
Gabriel, 1764[63]
 Commode of Madame du Barry; by Martin
Carlin (attribution); 1772; oak base veneered
with pearwood, rosewood and amaranth,
soft-paste Sèvres porcelain, bronze gilt,
white marble; 87 x 119 cm; Louvre[64]
Hôtel du Châtelet, Paris, unknown architect,
1776[65]

Stairway of the Grand Theater of Bordeaux,

Bordeaux, France, by Victor Louis, 1777-
1780[66]
 Parisian corner cabinet; by Jean Henri
Riesener; 1780–1790; oak, mahogany,
marble, and ormolu mounts; 94.3 × 81.3 ×
55.9 cm; Art Institute of Chicago, US[67]
 Large vase; 1783; hard porcelain and gilt
bronze; height: 2 m, diameter: 0.90 m; Louvre

The Cabinet Doré of Marie-Antoinette at the

Palace of Versailles, Versailles, France, by
the Rousseau brothers, 1783[68]
Roll-top desk of Marie-Antoinette; by Jean-
Henri Riesener; 1784; oak and pine frame,
sycamore, amaranth and rosewood veneer,
bronze gilt; 103.6 x 113.4 cm; Louvre[69]
Writing table of Marie-Antoinette; by Adam
Weisweiler; 1784; oak, ebony and sycamore
veneer, Japanese lacquer, steel, bronze gilt;
73.7 x 81. 2 cm; Louvre[69]
Ewer; 1784–1785; silver; height: 32.9 cm;
Metropolitan Museum of Art
 Folding stool (pliant); 1786; carved and
painted beechwood, covered in pink silk;
46.4 × 68.6 × 51.4 cm; Metropolitan Museum
of Art
Pair of vases; 1789; hard-paste porcelain, gilt
bronze, marble; height (each): 23 cm;
Metropolitan Museum of Art
 Armchair (fauteuil) from Louis XVI's Salon
des Jeux at Saint Cloud; 1788; carved and
gilded walnut, gold brocaded silk (not
original); overall: 100 × 74.9 × 65.1 cm;
Metropolitan Museum of Art

It marks the transition from Rococo to

Classicism. Unlike the Classicism of Louis
XIV, which transformed ornaments into
symbols, Louis XVI style represents them
as realistic and natural as possible, i.e.
laurel branches really are laurel branches,
roses the same, and so on. One of the
main decorative principles is symmetry. In
interiors, the colours used are very bright,
including white, light grey, bright blue, pink,
yellow, very light lilac, and gold. Excesses
of ornamentation are avoided.[70] The
return to antiquity is synonymous with
above all with a return to the straight lines:
strict verticals and horizontals were the
order of the day. Serpentine ones were no
longer tolerated, save for the occasional
half circle or oval. Interior decor also
honored this taste for rigor, with the result
that flat surfaces and right angles returned
to fashion. Ornament was used to mediate
this severity, but it never interfered with
basic lines and always was disposed
symmetrically around a central axis. Even
so, ébénistes often canted fore-angles to
avoid excessive rigidity.[71]

The decorative motifs of Louis XVI style

were inspired by antiquity, the Louis XIV
style, and nature. Characteristic elements
of the style: a torch crossed with a sheath
with arrows, imbricated disks, guilloché,
double bow-knots, smoking braziers, linear
repetitions of small motifs (rosettes,
beads, oves), trophy or floral medallions
hanging from a knotted ribbon, acanthus
leaves, gadrooning, interlace, meanders,
cornucopias, mascarons, Ancient urns,
tripods, perfume burners, dolphins, ram
and lion heads, chimeras, and gryphons.
Greco-Roman architectural motifs are also
very used: flutings, pilasters (fluted and
unfluted), fluted balusters (twisted and
straight), columns (engaged and
unengaged, sometimes replaced by
caryathids), volute corbels, triglyphs with
guttae (in relief and trompe-l'œil).[72]
Directoire style (1789–1804)

Panel win an grotesque in the Hôtel

Gouthière, Paris, unknown architect,
unknown date
Rue Jacob no. 46, Paris, unknown architect,
unknown date
 Astronomical clock; by Philippe-Jacques
Corniquet; c.1794; gilt bronze and enamel
face; unknown dimensions; Musée des Arts
Décoratifs, Paris[73]
 Fan; by Charles Percier, Pierre-François-
Léonard Fontaine and Antoine Denis
Chaudet; c.1797-1799; paper, wood, and
bone; 23.5 x 43.8 cm; Metropolitan Museum
of Art (New York City)
Armchair of the salon of Madame Récamier;
attributed to Jacob Frères; c.1798; various
types of wood; 84.5 x 62.2 x 62 cm; Musée
des Arts Décoratifs[74]
Empire style (1804–1815)

Coffeepot; 1797–1809; silver gilt; height:

33.3 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York City
Empress Joséphine's Bedroom in Château
de Malmaison, Rueil-Malmaison, France, by
Charles Percier and Pierre-François-Léonard
Fontaine, 1800-1802[75]
Washstand (athénienne or lavabo); 1800–
1814; legs, base and shelf of yew wood, gilt-
bronze mounts, iron plate beneath shelf;
height: 92.4 cm, width: 49.5 cm; Metropolitan
Museum of Art
Portico of the Palais Bourbon, Paris, by
Bernard Poyet, 1806-1808[76]
La Madeleine, Paris, by Pierre-Alexandre
Vignon, 1807-1842[76]
Vase; 1809; hard-paste porcelain and gilded
bronze handles; height: 74.9 cm, diameter:
35.6 cm; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford,
Connecticut, US[77]
Egyptian Revival coin cabinet; by François-
Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter; 1809–
1819; mahogany (probably Swietenia
mahagoni), with applied and inlaid silver;
90.2 x 50.2 x 37.5 cm; Metropolitan Museum
of Art
Clock with Mars and Venus; c. 1810; gilded
bronze and patina; height: 90 cm; Louvre
King of Rome's Cradle; by Pierre-Paul
Prud'hon, Henri Victor Roguier, Jean-
Baptiste-Claude Odiot and Pierre-Philippe
Thomire; 1811; wood, silver gilt, mother-of-
pearl, sheets of copper covered with velvet,
silk and tulle, decorated with silver and gold
thread; height: 216 cm; Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna, Austria[78]
Carpet; 1814–1830; 309.9 × 246.4 cm;
Metropolitan Museum of Art

It's representative for the new French

society that has exited the revolution
which set the tone in all life fields,
including art. The Jacquard machine is
invented during this period (which
revolutionises the entire sewing system,
manual until then). One of the dominant
colours is red, decorated with gilt bronze.
Bright colours are also used, including
white, cream, violet, brown, bleu, dark red,
with little ornaments of gilt bronze. Interior
architecture includes wood panels
decorated with gilt reliefs (on a white
background or a coloured one). Motifs are
placed geometrically. The walls are
covered in stuccos, wallpaper pr fabrics.
Fireplace mantels are made of white
marble, having caryatids at their corners,
or other elements: obelisks, sphinxes,
winged lions, and so on. Bronze objects
were placed on their tops, including mantel
clocks. The doors consist of simple
rectangular panels, decorated with a
Pompeian-inspired central figure. Empire
fabrics are damasks with a bleu or brown
background, satins with a green, pink or
purple background, velvets of the same
colors, brooches broached with gold or
silver, and cotton fabrics. All of these were
used in interiors for curtains, for covering
certain furniture, for cushions or
upholstery (leather is also used for
upholstery).[79]

All Empire ornament is governed by a

rigorous spirit of symmetry reminiscent of
the Louis XIV style. Generally, the motifs
on a piece's right and left sides correspond
to one another in every detail; when they
do not, the individual motifs themselves
are entirely symmetrical in composition:
antique heads with identical tresses falling
onto each shoulder, frontal figures of
Victory with symmetrically arrayed tunics,
identical rosettes or swans flanking a lock
plate, etc. Like Louis XIV, Napoleon had a
set of emblems unmistakably associated
with his rule, most notably the eagle, the
bee, stars, and the initials I (for Imperator)
and N (for Napoleon), which were usually
inscribed within an imperial laurel crown.
Motifs used include: figures of Victory
bearing palm branches, Greek dancers,
nude and draped women, figures of
antique chariots, winged putti, mascarons
of Apollo, Hermes and the Gorgon, swans,
lions, the heads of oxen, horses and wild
beasts, butterflies, claws, winged
chimeras, sphinxes, bucrania, sea horses,
oak wreaths knotted by thin trailing
ribbons, climbing grape vines, poppy
rinceaux, rosettes, palm branches, and
laurel. There's a lot of Greco-Roman ones:
stiff and flat acanthus leaves, palmettes,
cornucopias, beads, amphoras, tripods,
imbricated disks, caduceuses of Mercury,
vases, helmets, burning torches, winged
trumpet players, and ancient musical
instruments (tubas, rattles and especially
lyres). Despite their antique derivation, the
fluting and triglyphs so prevalent under
Louis XVI are abandoned. Egyptian Revival
motifs are especially common at the
beginning of the period: scarabs, lotus
capitals, winged disks, obelisks, pyramids,
figures wearing nemeses, caryatids en
gaine supported by bare feet and with
women Egyptian headdresses.[80]
Italy

Palazzo Grassi, on the Grand canal in Venice,

by Giorgio Massari, 1748-1772
La Scala Opera House, Milan, by Giuseppe
Piermarini, completed in 1778

Palazzo Belgioioso, Milan, by Giuseppe

Piermarini, 1781
 Villa Belgiojoso Bonaparte, Milan, by
Leopoldo Pollack, 1790-1796

Piazza del Plebiscito, Naples, unknown

architect, 1809-1846
Piazza del Popolo (Rome), redesigned
between 1811 and 1822, by Giuseppe
Valadier
 Education of the Infant Bacchus; by Niccolò
Amastini; first half 19th century; onyx with
gold frame; overall (in setting): 6.5 x 4.8 cm;
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

From the second half of the 18th century

through the 19th century, Italy went
through a great deal of socio-economic
changes, several foreign invasions and the
turbulent Risorgimento, which resulted in
the Italian unification in 1861. Thus, Italian
art went through a series of minor and
major changes in style.

The Italian Neoclassicism was the earliest

manifestation of the general period known
as Neoclassicism and lasted more than
the other national variants of
neoclassicism. It developed in opposition
to the Baroque style around c.1750 and
lasted until c.1850. Neoclassicism began
around the period of the rediscovery of
Pompeii and spread all over Europe as a
generation of art students returned to their
countries from the Grand Tour in Italy with
rediscovered Greco-Roman ideals. It first
centred in Rome where artists such as
Antonio Canova and Jacques-Louis David
were active in the second half of the 18th
century, before moving to Paris. Painters
of Vedute, like Canaletto and Giovanni
Paolo Panini, also enjoyed a huge success
during the Grand Tour. Neoclassical
architecture was inspired by the
Renaissance works of Palladio and saw in
Luigi Vanvitelli and Filippo Juvarra the
main interpreters of the style.

Classicist literature had a great impact on

the Risorgimento movement: the main
figures of the period include Vittorio Alfieri,
Giuseppe Parini, Vincenzo Monti and Ugo
Foscolo, Giacomo Leopardi and
Alessandro Manzoni (nephew of Cesare
Beccaria), who were also influenced by the
French Enlightenment and German
Romanticism. The virtuoso violinist
Paganini and the operas of Rossini,
Donnizetti, Bellini and, later, Verdi
dominated the scene in Italian classical
and romantic music.

The art of Francesco Hayez and especially

that of the Macchiaioli represented a break
with the classical school, which came to
an end as Italy unified (see Italian modern
and contemporary art). Neoclassicism
was the last Italian-born style, after the
Renaissance and Baroque, to spread to all
Western Art.
Romania

Round church of Saint Demetrius, Lețcani,

unknown architect, 1795[81]
 Știrbei Palace (Calea Victoriei no. 107),
Bucharest, by Michel Sanjouand, c.1835; with
a new level with caryatids added in 1882 by
Joseph Hartmann[82]
 The old building of the University of
Bucharest, designed by Alexandru Orăscu
and decorated with sculptures by Karl Storck,
1857–1864, bombarded in April or May 1944
during WW2 and partially destroyed, partially
rebuilt during the late 1960s[83]
 Romanian Athenaeum on Calea Victoriei,
Bucharest, by Albert Galleron, 1886–1895[84]
 Upper part of a tiled stove in the principals'
house of the Central Girls' School, Bucharest,
unknown designer, 1890
Arabesque on a corner of Strada General
H.M. Berthelot no. 52, Bucharest, unknown
architect, 1890
Interior of the Cesianu-Racoviță Palace
(Strada C.A. Rosetti no. 5) Bucharest, by
Jules Berthet, 1892-1902

Calea Unirii no. 73, Craiova, unknown

architect, c.1900
During the 19th century, the predominant
style in Wallachia and Moldavia, later the
Kingdom of Romania, was Classicism
which lasted for a long time, until the 20th
century, although it coexisted in some
short periods with other styles. Foreign
architects and engineers were invited here
since the first decade of the 19th century.
Most of the architects that built during the
beginning of the century were foreigners
because Romanians did not have yet the
instruction needed for designing buildings
that were very different compared to the
Romanian tradition. Usually using
Classicism, they start building together
with Romanian artisans, usually prepared
in foreign schools or academies.
Romanian architects study in Western
European schools as well. One example is
Alexandru Orăscu, one of the
representatives of Neoclassicism in
Romania.

Classicism manifested both in religious

and secular architecture. A good example
of secular architecture is the Știrbei Palace
on Calea Victoriei (Bucharest), built around
the year 1835, after the plans of French
architect Michel Sanjouand. It received a
new level in 1882, designed by Austrian
architect Joseph Hartmann[85][86]
Russia and the Soviet Union

Ostankino Palace, Moscow, Russia, by

Francesco Camporesi, completed in 1798
 Arkhangelskoye Estate, Krasnogorsky
District, Moscow Oblast, by Jacob Guerne,
unknown date

In 1905–1914 Russian architecture

passed through a brief but influential
period of Neoclassical revival; the trend
began with recreation of Empire style of
alexandrine period and quickly expanded
into a variety of neo-Renaissance,
Palladian and modernized, yet
recognizably classical schools. They were
led by architects born in the 1870s, who
reached creative peak before World War I,
like Ivan Fomin, Vladimir Shchuko and Ivan
Zholtovsky. When economy recovered in
the 1920s, these architects and their
followers continued working in primarily
modernist environment; some
(Zholtovsky) strictly followed the classical
canon, others (Fomin, Schuko, Ilya
Golosov) developed their own modernized
styles.[87]

With the crackdown on architects

independence and official denial of
modernism (1932), demonstrated by the
international contest for the Palace of
Soviets, Neoclassicism was instantly
promoted as one of the choices in Stalinist
architecture, although not the only choice.
It coexisted with moderately modernist
architecture of Boris Iofan, bordering with
contemporary Art Deco (Schuko); again,
the purest examples of the style were
produced by Zholtovsky school that
remained an isolated phenomena. The
political intervention was a disaster for
constructivist leaders yet was sincerely
welcomed by architects of the classical
schools.
Neoclassicism was an easy choice for the
USSR since it did not rely on modern
construction technologies (steel frame or
reinforced concrete) and could be
reproduced in traditional masonry. Thus
the designs of Zholtovsky, Fomin and
other old masters were easily replicated in
remote towns under strict material
rationing. Improvement of construction
technology after World War II permitted
Stalinist architects to venture into
skyscraper construction, although
stylistically these skyscrapers (including
"exported" architecture of Palace of
Culture and Science, Warsaw and the
Shanghai International Convention Centre)
share little with the classical models.
Neoclassicism and neo-Renaissance
persisted in less demanding residential
and office projects until 1955, when Nikita
Khrushchev put an end to expensive
Stalinist architecture.
The United Kingdom

Kedleston Hall, Kedleston, Derbyshire,

England, by Robert Adam, 1760-1770[88]
 Eating Room, Osterley Park, London, by
Robert Adam, 1761[89]

Syon House, Middlesex, England, by Robert

Adam, 1762[88]
 The Hall, Osterley Park, by Robert Adam,
1767[90]

Carpet; by Robert Adam; 1770–1780;

knotted wool; 505.5 x 473.1 cm;
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
 Apotheosis of Virgil; by John Flaxman;
c.1776; jasperware; diameter: 41 cm; Harris
Museum, Preston, Lancashire, UK[91]

Somerset House, London, by William

Chambers, 1776-1801[92]
Urn on pedestal; c.1780 with latter additions;
by Robert Adam; inlaid mahogany; height:
49.8 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Side table with many acanthus leafs and two
bucrania; by Robert Adam; c.1780 with later
addition; mahogany; overall: 88.6 × 141.3 ×
57.1 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Covered Wedgwood urn; c.1800; jasper ware
with relief decoration; overall: 19.7 cm;
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio,
US[93]

The Adam style was created by two

brothers, Adam and James, who published
in 1777 a volume of etchings with interior
ornamentation. In the interior decoration
made after Robert Adam's drawings, the
walls, ceilings, doors, and any other
surface, are divided into big panels:
rectangular, round, square, with stuccos
and Greco-Roman motifs at the edges.
Ornaments used include festoons, pearls,
egg-and-dart bands, medallions, and any
other motifs used during the Classical
antiquity (especially the Etruscan ones).
Decorative fittings such as urn-shaped
stone vases, gilded silverware, lamps, and
stauettes all have the same source of
inspiration, classical antiquity. The Adam
style emphasizes refined rectangular
mirrors, framed like paintings (in frames
with stylised leafs), or with a pediment
above them, supporting an urn or a
medallion. Another design of Adam
mirrors is shaped like a Venetian window,
with a big central mirror between two
other thinner and longer ones. Another
type of mirrors are the oval ones, usually
decorated with festoons. The furniture in
this style has a similar structure to Louis
XVI furniture.[94]

Besides the Adam style, when it comes to

decorative arts, England is also known for
the ceramic manufacturer Josiah
Wedgwood (1730–1795), who established
a pottery called Etruria. Wedgwood ware is
made of a material called jasperware, a
hard and fine-grained type of stoneware.
Wedgwood vases are usually decorated
with reliefs in two colours, in most cases
the figures being white and the
background blue.
The United States

Maple secretary; c. 1790; maple and brass;

height: 242.57 cm; Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, US
Candlestand; 1790–1800; mahogany, birch,
and various inlays; 107 x 49.21 x 48.9 cm;
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
 Writing desk; 1790–1810; satinwood,
mahogany, tulip poplar, and pine; 153.67 x
90.17 x 51.44 cm; Los Angeles County
Museum of Art
White House, Washington, D.C., by James
Hoban, 1792-1829[95]

Capitol Building, Washington, D.C., 1793–

1863, by William Thornton and Thomas
Ustick Walter[95]
 Armchair; possibly by Ephraim Haines;
1805–1815; mahogany and cane; height:
84.77 cm, width: 52.07 cm; Los Angeles
County Museum of Art
 Four-column pedestal card table with
pineapple finial; 1815–1820; mahogany, tulip
poplar, and pine woods; 74.93 x 92.71 x
46.67 cm; Los Angeles County Museum of
Art
 The Rotunda, University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, Virginia, by Thomas
Jefferson, 1822-1826[96]

South Carolina State House, Columbia, South

Carolina, by John Rudolph Niernsee, 1855
 Brevard-Rice House, Garden District, New
Orleans, by James Calrow, 1857[97]

On the American continent, architecture

and interior decoration have been highly
influenced by the styles developed in
Europe. The French taste has highly
marked its presence in the southern states
(after the French Revolution some
emigrants have moved here, and in
Canada a big part of the population has
French origins). The practical spirit and the
material situation of the Americans at that
time gave the interiors a typic atmosphere.
All the American furniture, carpets,
tableware, ceramic, and silverware, with all
the European influences, and sometimes
Islamic, Turkish or Asian, were made in
conformity with the American norms,
taste, and functional requirements. There
have existed in the US a period of the
Queen Anne style, and an Chippendale
one. A style of its own, the Federal style,
has developed completely in the 18th and
early 19th centuries, which has flourished
being influenced by Britannic taste. Under
the impulse of Neoclassicism,
architecture, interiors, and furniture have
been created. The style, although it has
numerous characteristics which differ
from state to state, is unitary. The
structures of architecture, interiors, and
furniture are Classicist, and incorporate
Baroque and Rococo influences. The
shapes used include rectangles, ovals, and
crescents. Stucco or wooden panels on
walls and ceilings reproduce Classicist
motifs. Furniture tend to be decorated with
floral marquetry and bronze or brass inlays
(sometimes gilded).[98]
Gardens
In England, Augustan literature had a
direct parallel with the Augustan style of
landscape design. The links are clearly
seen in the work of Alexander Pope. The
best surviving examples of Neoclassical
English gardens are Chiswick House,
Stowe House and Stourhead.[99]
Fashion

James Dawkins and Robert Wood

Discovering the Ruins of Palmyra, by Gavin
Hamilton, 1758
Dresses from the Gallery of Fashion, 1794–
1802
 Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford in a
Bedford Crop, by William Grimaldi after John
Hoppner, early 19th century, based on a work
of 1796–1797
Madame Raymond de Verninac by Jacques-
Louis David, with clothes and chair in
Directoire style. "Year 7": that is, 1798–1799

Revolutionary socialite Thérésa Tallien, by

Marie-Guillemine Benoist, c.1799
Portrait of Madame Récamier, by Jacques-
Louis David, 1800

Point de Convention, by Louis-Léopold Boilly,

c.1801
 Illustration showing women playing
badminton, hand-colored etching from the
series Le Bon Genre, by François Joseph
Bosio, 1801

Madame Récamier, by François Gérard, 1802

Kensington Garden dresses for June, fashion
plate from Le Beau Monde, 1808

In fashion, Neoclassicism influenced the

much greater simplicity of women's
dresses, and the long-lasting fashion for
white, from well before the French
Revolution, but it was not until after it that
thorough-going attempts to imitate
ancient styles became fashionable in
France, at least for women. Classical
costumes had long been worn by
fashionable ladies posing as some figure
from Greek or Roman myth in a portrait (in
particular there was a rash of such
portraits of the young model Emma, Lady
Hamilton from the 1780s), but such
costumes were only worn for the portrait
sitting and masquerade balls until the
Revolutionary period, and perhaps, like
other exotic styles, as undress at home.
But the styles worn in portraits by Juliette
Récamier, Joséphine de Beauharnais,
Thérésa Tallien and other Parisian trend-
setters were for going-out in public as
well. Seeing Mme Tallien at the opera,
Talleyrand quipped that: "Il n'est pas
possible de s'exposer plus
somptueusement!" ("One could not be
more sumptuously undressed"). In 1788,
just before the Revolution, the court
portraitist Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
had held a Greek supper where the ladies
wore plain white Grecian tunics.[100]
Shorter classical hairstyles, where
possible with curls, were less controversial
and very widely adopted, and hair was now
uncovered even outdoors; except for
evening dress, bonnets or other coverings
had typically been worn even indoors
before. Thin Greek-style ribbons or fillets
were used to tie or decorate the hair
instead.
Very light and loose dresses, usually white
and often with shockingly bare arms, rose
sheer from the ankle to just below the
bodice, where there was a strongly
emphasized thin hem or tie round the
body, often in a different colour. The shape
is now often known as the Empire
silhouette although it predates the First
French Empire of Napoleon, but his first
Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais was
influential in spreading it around Europe. A
long rectangular shawl or wrap, very often
plain red but with a decorated border in
portraits, helped in colder weather, and
was apparently laid around the midriff
when seated—for which sprawling semi-
recumbent postures were favoured.[101] By
the start of the 19th century, such styles
had spread widely across Europe.

Neoclassical fashion for men was far

more problematic, and never really took off
other than for hair, where it played an
important role in the shorter styles that
finally despatched the use of wigs, and
then white hair-powder, for younger men.
The trouser had been the symbol of the
barbarian to the Greeks and Romans, but
outside the painter's or, especially, the
sculptor's studio, few men were prepared
to abandon it. Indeed, the period saw the
triumph of the pure trouser, or pantaloon,
over the culotte or knee-breeches of the
Ancien Régime. Even when David designed
a new French "national costume" at the
request of the government during the
height of the Revolutionary enthusiasm for
changing everything in 1792, it included
fairly tight leggings under a coat that
stopped above the knee. A high proportion
of well-to-do young men spent much of the
key period in military service because of
the French Revolutionary Wars, and
military uniform, which began to
emphasize jackets that were short at the
front, giving a full view of tight-fitting
trousers, was often worn when not on duty,
and influenced civilian male styles.
The trouser-problem had been recognised
by artists as a barrier to creating
contemporary history paintings; like other
elements of contemporary dress they were
seen as irredeemably ugly and unheroic by
many artists and critics. Various
stratagems were used to avoid depicting
them in modern scenes. In James
Dawkins and Robert Wood Discovering the
Ruins of Palmyra (1758) by Gavin
Hamilton, the two gentleman antiquaries
are shown in toga-like Arab robes. In
Watson and the Shark (1778) by John
Singleton Copley, the main figure could
plausibly be shown nude, and the
composition is such that of the eight other
men shown, only one shows a single
breeched leg prominently. However the
Americans Copley and Benjamin West led
the artists who successfully showed that
trousers could be used in heroic scenes,
with works like West's The Death of
General Wolfe (1770) and Copley's The
Death of Major Peirson, 6 January 1781
(1783), although the trouser was still being
carefully avoided in The Raft of the
Medusa, completed in 1819.

Classically inspired male hairstyles

included the Bedford Crop, arguably the
precursor of most plain modern male
styles, which was invented by the radical
politician Francis Russell, 5th Duke of
Bedford as a protest against a tax on hair
powder; he encouraged his friends to
adopt it by betting them they would not.
Another influential style (or group of
styles) was named by the French "à la
Titus" after Titus Junius Brutus (not in fact
the Roman Emperor Titus as often
assumed), with hair short and layered but
somewhat piled up on the crown, often
with restrained quiffs or locks hanging
down; variants are familiar from the hair of
both Napoleon and George IV of the United
Kingdom. The style was supposed to have
been introduced by the actor François-
Joseph Talma, who upstaged his wigged
co-actors when appearing in productions
of works such as Voltaire's Brutus (about
Lucius Junius Brutus, who orders the
execution of his son Titus). In 1799 a
Parisian fashion magazine reported that
even bald men were adopting Titus
wigs,[102] and the style was also worn by
women, the Journal de Paris reporting in
1802 that "more than half of elegant
women were wearing their hair or wig à la
Titus.[103]

Music
Neoclassicism in music is a 20th-century
movement; in this case it is the Classical
and Baroque musical styles of the 17th
and 18th centuries, with their fondness for
Greek and Roman themes, that were being
revived, not the music of the ancient world
itself. (The early 20th century had not yet
distinguished the Baroque period in music,
on which Neoclassical composers mainly
drew, from what we now call the Classical
period.) The movement was a reaction in
the first part of the 20th century to the
disintegrating chromaticism of late-
Romanticism and Impressionism,
emerging in parallel with musical
Modernism, which sought to abandon key
tonality altogether. It manifested a desire
for cleanness and simplicity of style, which
allowed for quite dissonant paraphrasing
of classical procedures, but sought to
blow away the cobwebs of Romanticism
and the twilit glimmerings of
Impressionism in favour of bold rhythms,
assertive harmony and clean-cut sectional
forms, coinciding with the vogue for
reconstructed "classical" dancing and
costume in ballet and physical education.

The 17th–18th century dance suite had

had a minor revival before World War I but
the Neoclassicists were not altogether
happy with unmodified diatonicism, and
tended to emphasise the bright
dissonance of suspensions and
ornaments, the angular qualities of 17th-
century modal harmony and the energetic
lines of countrapuntal part-writing.
Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances (1917)
led the way for the sort of sound to which
the Neoclassicists aspired. Although the
practice of borrowing musical styles from
the past has not been uncommon
throughout musical history, art musics
have gone through periods where
musicians used modern techniques
coupled with older forms or harmonies to
create new kinds of works. Notable
compositional characteristics are:
referencing diatonic tonality, conventional
forms (dance suites, concerti grossi,
sonata forms, etc.), the idea of absolute
music untramelled by descriptive or
emotive associations, the use of light
musical textures, and a conciseness of
musical expression. In classical music,
this was most notably perceived between
the 1920s and the 1950s. Igor Stravinsky
is the best-known composer using this
style; he effectively began the musical
revolution with his Bach-like Octet for Wind
Instruments (1923). A particular individual
work that represents this style well is
Prokofiev's Classical Symphony No. 1 in D,
which is reminiscent of the symphonic
style of Haydn or Mozart. Neoclassical
ballet as innovated by George Balanchine
de-cluttered the Russian Imperial style in
terms of costume, steps and narrative,
while also introducing technical
innovations.
Later Neoclassicism and
continuations

Beaux-Arts - Exterior of the Palais Garnier,

Paris, by Charles Garnier, 1860–1875[104]
 Beaux-Arts - Grand stairs of the Palais
Garnier, by Charles Garnier, 1860–1875[104]

Beaux-Arts - Grand Central Terminal, New

York City, by Reed and Stem and Warren and
Wetmore, 1903[105]
Beaux-Arts - Hôtel Roxoroid de Belfort, Paris,
1911, by André Arfvidson

Late Neoclassical - The West building of the

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., US,
by John Russell Pope, 1941
After the middle of the 19th century,
Neoclassicism starts to no longer be the
main style, being replaced by Eclecticism
of Classical styles. The Palais Garnier in
Paris is a good example of this, since
despite being predominantly Neoclassical,
it features elements and ornaments taken
from Baroque and Renaissance
architecture. This practice was frequent in
late 19th and early 20th century
architecture, before WW1. Besides
Neoclassicism, the Beaux-Arts de Paris
well known for this eclecticism of
Classical styles.
Pablo Picasso experimented with
classicizing motifs in the years
immediately following World War I.[106]

In American architecture, Neoclassicism

was one expression of the American
Renaissance movement, ca. 1890–1917;
its last manifestation was in Beaux-Arts
architecture, and its final large public
projects were the Lincoln Memorial (highly
criticized at the time), the National Gallery
of Art in Washington, D.C. (also heavily
criticized by the architectural community
as being backward thinking and old
fashioned in its design), and the American
Museum of Natural History's Roosevelt
Memorial. These were considered stylistic
anachronisms when they were finished. In
the British Raj, Sir Edwin Lutyens'
monumental city planning for New Delhi
marks the sunset of Neoclassicism. World
War II was to shatter most longing for (and
imitation of) a mythical time.

There was an entire 20th-century

movement in the non-visual arts which
was also called Neoclassicism. It
encompassed at least music, philosophy
and literature. It was between the end of
World War I and the end of World War II.
(For information on the musical aspects,
see 20th-century classical music and
Neoclassicism in music. For information
on the philosophical aspects, see Great
Books.)

This literary Neoclassical movement

rejected the extreme romanticism of (for
example) Dada, in favour of restraint,
religion (specifically Christianity) and a
reactionary political program. Although the
foundations for this movement in English
literature were laid by T. E. Hulme, the
most famous Neoclassicists were T. S.
Eliot and Wyndham Lewis. In Russia, the
movement crystallized as early as 1910
under the name of Acmeism, with Anna
Akhmatova and Osip Mandelshtam as the
leading representatives.
Art Deco

Chest of drawers, a highly simplified

reinterpretation of the Louis XVI style; by
Clément Mère; 1910; maple, ebony, leather
and ivory; 87.5 x 96 x 37 cm; Musée d'Orsay,
Paris[107]
Dressing table and chair, a reinterpretation of
the Louis XVI style; by Paul Follot; 1919;
marble and encrusted, lacquered, and gilded
wood; unknown dimsensions; Musée d'Art
Moderne de Paris
Hommage à Jean Goujon; by Alfred Janniot;
1919–1924; limestone partially coloured;
220 x 235 x 129 cm; Calouste Gulbenkian
Museum, Lisboa, Portugal[108]
 Plate with design for an interior from the
collection of projects Architectures, by Louis
Süe and André Mare, 1921
Boudoir from the Hôtel du Collectionneur, a
highly simplified reinterpretation of the Louis
XVI style, at the 1925 Paris Exhibition, by
Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann
Château de Sept-Saulx, Grand Est, a highly
simplified reinterpretation of the Louis XVI
style, France, by Louis Süe, 1928-1929[109]
Daily Telegraph Building, London, by Charles
Ernest Elcock, after consulting with Thomas
S. Tait, 1928[110]
Dumitru Săvulescu House (Bulevardul Dacia
no. 73), Bucharest, Romania, by Gheorghe
Negoescu, 1933[111]
 Grave of the Străjescu Family, Bellu
Cemetery, Bucharest, by George Cristinel,
1934[106]
Embassy of France, Belgrade, Serbia, by
Roger-Henri Expert with Josif Najman as
assistant, designed in 1926, built in
1939[112][113]
Avenue Foch no. 53, Paris, by Charles Abella,
1939[109]

Fleet Street no. 56, London, unknown

architect, unknown date
Although it started to be seen as 'dated'
after WW1, principles, proportions and
other Neoclassical elements were not
abandoned yet. Art Deco was the
dominant style during the interwar period,
and it corresponds with the taste of a
bourgeois elite for high class French styles
of the past, including the Louis XVI,
Directoire and Empire (the period styles of
French Neoclassicism). At the same time,
this French elite was equally capable of
appreciating Modern art, like the works of
Pablo Picasso or Amedeo Modigliani. The
result of this situation is the early Art Deco
style, which uses both new and old
elements. The Palais de Tokyo from 1937
in Paris, by André Aubert and Marcel
Dastugue, is a good example of this.
Although ornaments are not used here, the
facade being decorated only with reliefs,
the way columns are present here is a
strong reminiscence of Neoclassicism. Art
Deco design often drew on Neoclassical
motifs without expressing them overtly:
severe, blocky commodes by Émile-
Jacques Ruhlmann or Louis Süe & André
Mare; crisp, extremely low-relief friezes of
damsels and gazelles in every medium;
fashionable dresses that were draped or
cut on the bias to recreate Grecian lines;
the art dance of Isadora Duncan.
Conservative modernist architects such as
Auguste Perret in France kept the rhythms
and spacing of columnar architecture even
in factory buildings.

The oscillation of Art Deco between the

use of historic elements, shapes and
proportions, and the appetite for 'new', for
Modernism, is the result of multiple
factors. One of them is eclecticism. The
complexity and heterogeneity of Art Deco
is largely due to the eclectic spirit. Stylized
elements from repertoire of Beaux-Arts,
Neoclassicism, or of cultures distant in
time and space (Ancient Egypt, Pre-
Columbian Americas, or Sub-Saharian
African art) are put together with
references to Modernist avant-guard
artists of the early 20th century (Henri
Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani or Constantin
Brâncuși). The Art Deco phenomenon
owes to academic eclecticism and
Neoclassicism mainly the existence of a
specific architecture. Without the
contribution of the Beaux-Arts trained
architects, Art Deco architecture would
have remained, with the exception of
residential buildings, a collection of
decorative objects magnified to an urban
scale, like the pavilions of the International
Exhibition of Modern Decorative and
Industrial Arts from 1925, controversial at
their time. Another reason for the swinging
between historical elements and
modernism was consumer culture.
Objects and buildings in the puritan
International style, devoid of any
ornamentation or citation of the past, were
too radical for the general public. In
interwar France and England, the spirit of
the public and much architectural criticism
could not conceive a style totally deprived
of ornament, like the International style.

The use of historic styles as sources of

inspiration for Art Deco starts as far back
as the years before WW1, through the
efforts of decorators like Maurice Dufrêne,
Paul Follot, Paul Iribe, André Groult, Léon
Jallot or Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, who
relate to the prestigious French artistic
and handicraft tradition of the late 18th
and early 19th centuries (the Louis XVI,
Directoire and Louis Philippe), and who
want to bring a new approach to these
styles. The neo-Louis XVI style was really
popular in France and Romania in the
years before WW1, around 1910, and it
heavily influenced multiple early Art Deco
designs and buildings. A good example of
this is the Château de Sept-Saulx in Grand
Est, France, by Louis Süe, 1928–1929.[114]
Neoclassicism and Totalitarian
regimes

Socialist Realist - Lenin State Library,

Moscow, Russia, by Vladimir Shchuko and
Vladimir Helfreich, 1928-1941[115]
 Socialist Realist - Assembly of the
Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR,
Chaired by Kliment Voroshilov; by Isaak
Brodsky; 1929; oil on canvas; 95.5 x
129.5 cm; private collection[116]
 Fascist - University Rectorate and Law
Faculty Building in Bucharest (Bulevardul
Mihail Kogălniceanu no. 36–46), Bucharest,
Romania, by Petre Antonescu, 1933-1935[117]
Nazi - Familie (The Family); by Josef Thorak;
c.1937; probably bronze; unknown
dimensions; exhibited at the 1937 Paris
World Fair
 Nazi - New Reich Chancellery, Berlin, by
Albert Speer, 1938-1939[118]

Fascist - Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, Rome,

by Giovanni Guerrini, Ernesto La Padula, and
Mario Romano, 1939-1942[119]
Socialist Realist - Lomonosov University,
Moscow, by Lev Rudnev, 1947-1952[119]
Socialist Realist - Colonels' Quarter (Șoseaua
Panduri no. 60–62), Bucharest, by I.Novițchi,
C.Ionescu, C.Hacker and A.Șerbescu, 1950–
1960[120]
 Socialist Realist - Homage; by Constantin
Nitescu; c.1980; unknown technique;
unknown dimensions; unknown location

In Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Romania

under the rule of Carol II and the Soviet
Union, during the 1920s and 1930s,
totalitarian regimes chose Neoclassicism
for state buildings and art. Architecture
was central to totalitarian regimes'
expression of their permanence (despite
their obvious novelty). The way totalitarian
regimes drew from Classicism took many
forms. When it comes to state buildings in
Italy and Romania, architects attempted to
fuse a modern sensibility with abstract
classical forms. Two good examples of
this are the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in
Rome, and the University Rectorate and
Law Faculty Building in Bucharest
(Bulevardul Mihail Kogălniceanu no. 36–
46). In contrast, the Classicism of the
Soviet Union, known as Socialist Realism,
was bombastic, overloaded with
ornaments and architectural sculptures, as
an attempt to be in contrast with the
simplicity of 'Capitalist' or 'bourgeois'
styles like Art Deco or Modernism. The
Lomonosov University in Moscow is a
good example of this. Nikita Khrushchev,
the Soviet leader that succeeded Stalin,
did not like this pompous Socialist Realist
architecture from the reign of his
predecessor. Because of the low speed
and cost of these Neoclassical buildings,
he stated that 'they spent people's money
on beauty that no one needs, instead of
building simpler, but more'.

In the Soviet Union, Neoclassicism was

embraced as a rejection of Art Deco and
Modernism, which the Communists saw
as being too 'bourgeois' and 'capitalist'.
This Communist Neoclassical style is
known as Socialist Realism, and it was
popular during the reign of Joseph Stalin
(1924–1953). In fine art. Generally, it
manifested through deeply idealized
representations of wiry workers, shown as
heroes in collective farms or industrialized
cities, political assemblies, achievements
of Soviet technology, and through
depictions happy children staying around
Lenin or Stalin. Both subject matter and
representation were carefully monitored.
Artistic merit was determined by the
degree to which a work contributed to the
building of socialism. All artists had to join
the state-controlled Union of Soviet Artists
and produce work in the accepted style.
The three guiding principles of Socialist
Realism were party loyalty, presentation of
correct ideology and accessibility.
Realism, more easily understood by the
masses, was the style of choice. At the
beginning, in the Soviet Union, multiple
competing avant-garde movements were
present, notably Constructivism. However,
as Stalin consolidated his power towards
the end of the 1920s, avant-garde art and
architecture were suppressed and
eventually outlawed and official state
styles were established. After Boris Iofan
won the competition for the design of the
Palace of the Soviets with a stepped
classical tower, surmounted by a giant
statue of Lenin, architecture soon reverted
to pre-Revolutionary styles of art and
architecture, untainted by Constructivism's
perceived Western influence.[121] Although
Socialist Realism in architecture ended
more or less with the death of Stalin and
the rise of Nikita Khrushchev, paintings in
this style continued to be produced,
especially in countries where there was a
strong personality cult of the leader in
power, like in the case of Mao Zedong's
China, Kim Il Sung's North Korea, or
Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania.
The Nazis suppressed Germany's vibrant
avant-garde culture once they gained
control of the government in 1933. Albert
Speer was set as Adolf Hitler's
architectural advisor in 1934, and he tried
to create an architecture that would both
reflect the perceived unity of the German
people and act as backdrop to the Nazis'
expressions of power. The Nazis'
approach to architecture was riffled with
contradictions: while Hitler and Speer's
plans for reordering Berlin aspired to
imitate imperial Rome, in rural contexts
Nazi buildings took inspiration from local
vernaculars, trying to channel an
'authentic' German spirit. When it come to
fine art, the Nazis created the term
'Degenerate art' for Modern art, a kind of
art which to them was 'un-German',
'Jewish' or 'Communist'. The Nazis hated
modern art and linked it to 'cultural
bolshevism', the conspiracy theory that art
(or culture broadly) was controlled by a
leftist Jewish cabal seeking to destroy the
white race. Hitler's war on Modern art
mostly consisted of an exhibition that tried
to discredit Modern artists, called the
'Degenerate Art exhibition' (German: Die
Ausstellung "Entartete Kunst"). This
exhibition was displayed next to the Great
Exhibition of German Art, which consisted
of artworks that the Nazis approved of.
This way, the visitiors of both exhibitions
could compare the art labeled by the
regime as 'good' and 'bad'. With a similar
atitude, the regime closes in 1931 the
Bauhaus, an avant-garde art school in
Dessau that will prove extremely influential
in the future. It reopens in Berlin in 1932,
but it's closed again in 1933.

Compared to Germany and the Soviet

Union, in Italy the avant-garde contributed
to state architecture. Classical
architecture was also an influence,
echoing Benito Mussolini's far cruder
attempts to create links between his
Fascist regime and ancient Rome. Some
Italian architects tried to create fusions
between Modernism and Classicism, like
Marcello Piacentini with the Sapienza
University of Rome, or Giuseppe Terragni
with Casa del Fascio in Como.[122]

In Romania, towards the late 1930s,

influenced by the Autocratic tendency of
king Carol II, multiple state buildings are
erected. They were Neoclassical, many
very similar with what was popular in the
same years in Fascist Italy. Examples in
Bucharest include the University Rectorate
and Law Faculty Building (Bulevardul
Mihail Kogălniceanu no. 36–46), the
Kretzulescu Apartment Building (Calea
Victoriei no. 45), the CFR Building
(Bulevardul Dinicu Golescu no. 38) or the
Victoria Palace (Piața Victoriei no. 1). The
Royal Palace, whose interiors are mostly
done in a neo-Adam style, stands out by
being more decorated, a little closer to the
architecture before WW1.
Postmodernism

J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California, US,

by the partnership of Langdon and Wilson
with Edward Genter as the project architect
and archaeological advice from Dr Norman
Neuerberg, 1970-1975[123]
 Interior courtyard of Les Arcades du Lac,
Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France, by Ricardo
Bofill, 1975-1981[124]
Piazza d'Italia, New Orleans, US, by Charles
Moore, 1978
 Sheraton chair with applied decoration; by
Robert Venturi for Knoll; 1978–1984, bent
laminated wood; unknown dimensions;
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, USA[125]
 Tea and coffee piazza set; by Charles
Jencks; 1983; silver; unknown dimensions;
unknown location[126]
Louis XVI, lowboy; by Robert Venturi for Arc
International; c.1985; laminated wood;
unknown dimensions; Indianapolis Museum
of Art, Indianapolis, USA[127]
Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, London, by
Robert Venturi, 1987-1991[128]

Pumping Station, Isle of Dogs, London, John

Outram, 1988[127]
77 West Wacker Drive, Chicago, US, by
Ricardo Bofill, 1990-1992[129]

Harold Washington Library, Chicago, by

Hammond, Beeby & Babka, 1991[130]
Entrance era of the Harold Washington
Library, by Hammond, Beeby & Babka,
1991[130]
M2 Building, Tokyo, Japan, by Kengo Kuma,
1991[131]

Antigone, Montpellier, France, by Ricardo

Bofill, completed in 1992
Children's Museum of Houston, Houston, US,
by Robert Venturi, 1992[132]
The Forum Shops in Caesars Palace, Las
Vegas, US, by Marnell Corrao Associates,
1992[133]
Exterior of the Trafford Centre, Manchester,
UK, designed by Chapman Taylor and Leach
Rhodes Walker, with sculptures by Colin
Spofforth, 1998[134]
Interior of the Trafford Centre, by Chapman
Taylor and Leach Rhodes Walker, 1998[134]
 Louis Ghost, a simplified reinterpretation of
armchairs in the Louis XVI style; by Philippe
Starck; 2009; polycarbonate; height: 94 cm;
various locations[135]

An early text questioning Modernism was

by architect Robert Venturi, Complexity
and Contradiction in Architecture (1966),
in which he recommended a revival of the
'presence of the past' in architectural
design. He tried to include in his own
buildings qualities that he described as
'inclusion, inconsistency, compromise,
accommodation, adaptation,
superadjacency, equivalence, multiple
focus, juxtaposition, or good and bad
space.'[136] Robert Venturi's work reflected
the broader counter-cultural mood of the
1960s which saw younger generations
begin to question and challenge the
political, social and racial realities with
which they found themselves confronted.
This rejection of Modernism is known as
Postmodernism. Robert Venturi parodies
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's well-known
maxim 'less is more' with 'less is a bore'.
During the 1980s and 1990s, some
Postmodern architects found a refuge in a
sort of Neo-Neoclassicism. Their use of
Classicism was not limited only to
ornaments, using more or less proportions
and other principles too. Post-Modern
Classicism had been variously described
by some people as 'camp' or 'kitsch'. An
architect who has been remarked through
Post-Modern Classicism is Ricardo Bofill.
His work includes two housing projects of
titanic scale near Paris, known as Les
Arcades du Lac from 1975 to 1981, and
Les Espaces d'Abraxas from 1978 to 1983.
A building that stands out through its
revivalism is the J. Paul Getty Museum, in
Malibu, California, from 1970 to 1975,
inspired by the ancient Roman Villa of the
Papyri at Herculaneum. The J. Paul Getty
Museum is far closer to 19th century
Neoclassicism, like the Pompejanum in
Aschaffenburg, Germany, than to Post-
Modern Classicism of the 1980s.[137]
Architecture in the 21st century

Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London,

by John Simpson, 2000-2002[138]
Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Nashville,
US, by Earl Swensson Associates, David M.
Schwarz Architects, and Hastings
Architecture Associates, 2006
Postmodern table with different legs, some
of which are reminiscent of Neoclassical
furniture; unknown designer; c.2010; painted
wood; unknown dimensions; Cărturești
Verona (Strada Arthur Verona no. 15),
Bucharest, Romania
James Simon Gallery, entrance of the Neues
Museum, Berlin, by David Chipperfield, 2009-
2018

After a lull during the period of modern

architectural dominance (roughly post-
World War II until the mid-1980s),
Neoclassicism has seen something of a
resurgence.
As of the first decade of the 21st century,
contemporary Neoclassical architecture is
usually classed under the umbrella term of
New Classical Architecture. Sometimes it
is also referred to as Neo-Historicism or
Traditionalism.[139] Also, a number of
pieces of postmodern architecture draw
inspiration from and include explicit
references to Neoclassicism, Antigone
District and the National Theatre of
Catalonia in Barcelona among them.
Postmodern architecture occasionally
includes historical elements, like columns,
capitals or the tympanum.
For sincere traditional-style architecture
that sticks to regional architecture,
materials and craftsmanship, the term
Traditional Architecture (or vernacular) is
mostly used. The Driehaus Architecture
Prize is awarded to major contributors in
the field of 21st century traditional or
classical architecture, and comes with a
prize money twice as high as that of the
modernist Pritzker Prize.[140]

In the United States, various contemporary

public buildings are built in Neoclassical
style, with the 2006 Schermerhorn
Symphony Center in Nashville being an
example.
In Britain, a number of architects are active
in the Neoclassical style. Examples of
their work include two university libraries:
Quinlan Terry's Maitland Robinson Library
at Downing College and Robert Adam
Architects' Sackler Library.

See also
1795–1820 in Western fashion

American Empire (style)

Antiquization

Nazi architecture

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassicism in France

Neo-Grec, the late Greek-Revival style

 Skopje 2014

Notes
1. Stevenson, Angus (2010-08-19). Oxford
Dictionary of English (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=anecAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA
1189) . ISBN 9780199571123.

2. Kohle, Hubertu. (August 7, 2006). "The

road from Rome to Paris. The birth of a
modern Neoclassicism" (https://archiv.ub.
uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/978/) . Jacques
Louis David. New perspectives.
3. Baldick, Chris (2015). "Neoclassicism" (htt
ps://www.oxfordreference.com/display/1
0.1093/acref/9780198715443.001.0001/
acref-9780198715443-e-110?rskey=gCA8
Zd&result=782) . The Oxford Dictionary of
Literary Terms (https://www.oxfordreferen
ce.com/display/10.1093/acref/97801987
15443.001.0001/acref-9780198715443)
(Online Version) (4th ed.). Oxford University
Press. ISBN 9780191783234.

4. Greene, Roland; et al., eds. (2012).

"Neoclassical poetics". The Princeton
Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=uKiC6IeF
R2UC) (4th rev. ed.). Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-
691-15491-6.
5. "Neoclassical architecture | Definition,
Characteristics, Examples, & Facts |
Britannica" (https://www.britannica.com/a
rt/Neoclassical-architecture) .
www.britannica.com. 2023-06-01.
Retrieved 2023-07-30.

6. "Classical / Classical Revival / Neo-

Classical: an architectural style guide" (htt
ps://www.architecture.com/knowledge-an
d-resources/knowledge-landing-page/clas
sical-classical-revival-neo-classical) .
www.architecture.com. Retrieved
2023-07-30.

7. Irwin, David G. (1997). Neoclassicism A&I

(Art and Ideas) (https://archive.org/detail
s/neoclassicism0000irwi) . Phaidon
Press. ISBN 978-0-7148-3369-9.
 8. Honour, 17–25; Novotny, 21

9. A recurring theme in Clark: 19–23, 58–62,

69, 97–98 (on Ingres); Honour, 187–190;
Novotny, 86–87

10. Lingo, Estelle Cecile (2007). François

Duquesnoy and the Greek ideal. Yale
University Press; First Edition. pp. 161 (htt
ps://books.google.com/books?id=Wlq67ik
F0OEC&dq=Winckelmann+Neoclassicism
&pg=PA161) . ISBN 978-0-300-12483-5.

11. Talbott, Page (1995). Classical Savannah:

fine & decorative arts, 1800-1840.
University of Georgia Press. p. 6.
ISBN 978-0-8203-1793-9.
12. Cunningham, Reich, Lawrence S., John J.
(2009). Culture and values: a survey of the
humanities. Wadsworth Publishing; 7
edition. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-495-56877-3.

13. Honour, 57–62, 61 quoted

14. Both quotes from the first pages of

"Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works
in Painting and Sculpture"

15. "Industrial History of European Countries"

(https://www.erih.net/how-it-started/indus
trial-history-of-european-countries) .
European Route of Industrial Heritage.
Council of Europe. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
16. North, Douglass C.; Thomas, Robert Paul
(May 1977). "The First Economic
Revolution" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/
2595144) . The Economic History Review.
Wiley on behalf of the Economic History
Society. 30 (2): 229–230.
doi:10.2307/2595144 (https://doi.org/10.
2307%2F2595144) . JSTOR 2595144 (http
s://www.jstor.org/stable/2595144) .
Retrieved 6 June 2022.

17. Dyson, Stephen L. (2006). In Pursuit of

Ancient Pasts: A History of Classical
Archaeology in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries. Yale University
Press. pp. xii. ISBN 978-0-300-11097-5.

18. Honour, 21

19. Honour, 11, 23–25

20. Honour, 44–46; Novotny, 21

21. Honour, 43–62

22. Fortenberry 2017, p. 275.

23. Morrill, Rebecca (2019). Great Women

Artists. Phaidon. p. 413. ISBN 978-0-7148-
7877-5.

24. Morrill, Rebecca (2019). Great Women

Artists. Phaidon. p. 211. ISBN 978-0-7148-
7877-5.

25. Fortenberry 2017, p. 276.

26. Robertson, Hutton (2022). The History of

Art - From Prehistory to Presentday - A
Global View. Thames & Hudson. p. 993.
ISBN 978-0-500-02236-8.
27. Andrew, Graham-Dixon (2023). art - The
Definitive Visual History. p. 251. ISBN 978-
0-2416-2903-1.

28. Morrill, Rebecca (2019). Great Women

Artists. Phaidon. p. 59. ISBN 978-0-7148-
7877-5.

29. Morrill, Rebecca (2019). Great Women

Artists. Phaidon. p. 298. ISBN 978-0-7148-
7877-5.

30. Morrill, Rebecca (2019). Great Women

Artists. Phaidon. p. 419. ISBN 978-0-7148-
7877-5.

31. Andrew, Graham-Dixon (2023). art - The

Definitive Visual History. p. 270. ISBN 978-
0-2416-2903-1.
32. Andrew, Graham-Dixon (2023). art - The
Definitive Visual History. p. 298. ISBN 978-
0-2416-2903-1.

33. Clark, 20 (quoted); Honour, 14; image of

the painting (in fairness, other works by
Mengs are more successful)

34. Honour, 31–32 (31 quoted)

35. Honour, 113–114

36. Honour, 14

37. Novotny, 62

38. Novotny, 51–54

39. Clark, 45–58 (47–48 quoted); Honour, 50–

57

40. Honour, 34–37; Clark, 21–26; Novotny,

19–22
41. Novotny, 39–47; Clark, 97–145; Honour,
187–190

42. ART ● Architecture ● Painting ● Sculpture

● Graphics ● Design. 2011. p. 313.
ISBN 978-1-4454-5585-3.

43. Andrew, Graham-Dixon (2023). art - The

Definitive Visual History. p. 273. ISBN 978-
0-2416-2903-1.

44. Laneyrie-Dagen, Nadeije (2021). Historie

de l'art pour tous (in French). Hazan.
p. 264. ISBN 978-2-7541-1230-7.

45. Laneyrie-Dagen, Nadeije (2021). Historie

de l'art pour tous (in French). Hazan.
p. 265. ISBN 978-2-7541-1230-7.

46. Fortenberry 2017, p. 278.

47. Novotny, 378

48. Novotny, 378–379

49. Chinard, Gilbert, ed., Houdon in America

Arno PressNy, 1979, a reprint of a book
published by Johns Hopkins University,
1930

50. Novotny, 379–384

51. Novotny, 384–385

52. Novotny, 388–389

53. Novotny, 390–392

54. Gerdts, William H., American Neo-Classic

Sculpture: The Marble Resurrection, Viking
Press, New York, 1973 p. 11

55. Larbodière, Jean-Marc (2015).

L'Architecture de Paris des Origins à
Aujourd'hui (in French). Massin. p. 106.
ISBN 978-2-7072-0915-3.
56. Palmer, Alisson Lee. Historical dictionary
of neoclassical art and architecture. p. 1.

57. Gontar

58. Honour, 110–111, 110 quoted

59. Honour, 171–184, 171 quoted

60. de Martin 1925, p. 11.

61. Jones 2014, p. 276.

62. de Martin 1925, p. 13.

63. Jones 2014, p. 273.

64. Jacquemart, Albert (2012). Decorative Art.

Parkstone. p. 65. ISBN 978-1-84484-899-7.

65. Larbodière, Jean-Marc (2015).

L'Architecture de Paris des Origins à
Aujourd'hui (in French). Massin. p. 105.
ISBN 978-2-7072-0915-3.

66. de Martin 1925, p. 17.

67. "Corner Cabinet - The Art Institute of
Chicago" (https://www.artic.edu/artworks/
96539/corner-cabinet) .

68. de Martin 1925, p. 61.

69. Jacquemart, Albert (2012). Decorative Art.

Parkstone. p. 61. ISBN 978-1-84484-899-7.

70. Graur, Neaga (1970). Stiluri în arta

decorativă (in Romanian). Cerces. pp. 200,
201 & 202.

71. Sylvie, Chadenet (2001). French Furniture •

From Louis XIII to Art Deco. Little, Brown
and Company. p. 71.

72. Sylvie, Chadenet (2001). French Furniture •

From Louis XIII to Art Deco. Little, Brown
and Company. p. 72.
73. "ASTRONOMICAL CLOCK" (https://madpar
is.fr/~period/article-fiche-local4114en.ht
ml) . madparis.fr. Retrieved 23 May 2021.

74. "Bergère du salon de Madame Récamier

(OA 11384 à 11391), d'une paire avec OA
11386" (https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/5
3355/cl010116204) . collections.louvre.fr.
Retrieved 23 May 2022.

75. Jones 2014, p. 275.

76. Hopkins 2014, p. 111.

77. Odile, Nouvel-Kammerer (2007). Symbols

of Power • Napoleon and the Art of the
Empire Style • 1800-1815. p. 209.
ISBN 978-0-8109-9345-7.
78. Odile, Nouvel-Kammerer (2007). Symbols
of Power • Napoleon and the Art of the
Empire Style • 1800-1815. p. 32. ISBN 978-
0-8109-9345-7.

79. Graur, Neaga (1970). Stiluri în arta

decorativă (in Romanian). Cerces. pp. 217,
219, 220 & 221.

80. Sylvie, Chadenet (2001). French Furniture •

From Louis XIII to Art Deco. Little, Brown
and Company. p. 103 & 105.

81. Ispir, Mihai (1984). Clasicismul în Arta

Românească (in Romanian). Editura
Meridiane.

82. Florea, Vasile (2016). Arta Românească

de la Origini până în Prezent. Litera.
pp. 296, 297. ISBN 978-606-33-1053-9.
83. Oltean, Radu (2009). București 550 de ani
de la prima atestare documentată 1459-
2009 (in Romanian). ArCuB. p. 113.
ISBN 978-973-0-07036-1.

84. Celac, Carabela & Marcu-Lapadat 2017,

p. 65.

85. Florea, Vasile (2016). Arta Românească

de la Origini până în Prezent. Litera.
pp. 294, 296, 297. ISBN 978-606-33-1053-
9.

86. Lăzărescu, Cristea & Lăzărescu 1972,

p. 67, 68.

87. "The Origins of Modernism in Russian

Architecture" (http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/
view?docId=ft1g5004bj&brand=eschol) .
Content.cdlib.org. Retrieved 2012-02-12.
88. Hopkins 2014, p. 103.

89. Bailey 2012, pp. 226.

90. Fortenberry 2017, p. 274.

91. Farthing, Stephen (2020). ARTA Istoria

Artei de la pictura rupestră la arta urbană
(in Romanian). rao. p. 260. ISBN 978-606-
006-392-6.

92. Hopkins 2014, p. 104.

93. "Covered Urn - Cleveland Museum of Art"

(https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1951.3
01.2) . 30 October 2018. Retrieved 6 May
2022.

94. Graur, Neaga (1970). Stiluri în arta

decorativă (in Romanian). Cerces. pp. 253,
255 & 256.

95. Hodge 2019, p. 112.

 96. Hodge 2019, p. 31.

97. Irving, Mark (2019). 1001 BUILDINGS You

Must See Before You Die. Cassel
Illustrated. p. 281. ISBN 978-1-78840-176-
0.

98. Graur, Neaga (1970). Stiluri în arta

decorativă (in Romanian). Cerces. pp. 269,
270, & 271.

99. Turner, Turner (2013). British gardens:

history, philosophy and design, Chapter 6
Neoclassical gardens and landscapes
1730–1800. London: Routledge. p. 456.
ISBN 978-0415518789.

100. Hunt, 244

101. Hunt, 244–245

102. Hunt, 243

103. Rifelj, 35

104. Jones 2014, p. 296.

105. Hopkins 2014, p. 135.

106. Criticos, Mihaela (2009). Art Deco sau

Modernismul Bine Temperat – Art Deco or
Well-Tempered Modernism (in Romanian
and English). SIMETRIA. p. 79. ISBN 978-
973-1872-03-2.

107. "Commode à deux vantaux, cabinet de

milieu" (https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/oe
uvres/commode-deux-vantaux-cabinet-de-
milieu-163331) . musee-orsay.fr. Retrieved
25 June 2023.
108. "A Primavera: Homenagem a Jean Goujon"
(https://gulbenkian.pt/museu/works_mus
eu/a-primavera-homenagem-a-jean-goujo
n/) . gulbenkian.pt. Retrieved 25 June
2023.

109. Criticos, Mihaela (2009). Art Deco sau

Modernismul Bine Temperat - Art Deco or
Well-Tempered Modernism (in Romanian
and English). SIMETRIA. p. 91. ISBN 978-
973-1872-03-2.

110. Curl, James Stevens (2013). The Egyptian

Revival: Ancient Egypt as the Inspiration
for Design Motifs in the West. Routledge.
p. 412. ISBN 978-1-134-23467-7.
111. Woinaroski, Cristina (2013). Istorie urbană,
Lotizarea și Parcul Ioanid din București în
context european (in Romanian).
SIMETRIA. p. 216. ISBN 978-973-1872-30-
8.

112. Kadijevic, Aleksandar. "Arhitekt Josif

Najman (1890-1951), Moment 18,
Beograd 1990, 100-106" (https://www.aca
demia.edu/21221965) .

113. Criticos, Mihaela (2009). Art Deco sau

Modernismul Bine Temperat - Art Deco or
Well-Tempered Modernism (in Romanian
and English). SIMETRIA. p. 81. ISBN 978-
973-1872-03-2.
114. Criticos, Mihaela (2009). Art Deco sau
Modernismul Bine Temperat – Art Deco or
Well-Tempered Modernism (in Romanian
and English). SIMETRIA. pp. 29, 31, 40, 79,
91. ISBN 978-973-1872-03-2.

115. Watkin, David (2022). A History of Western

Architecture. Laurence King. p. 880.
ISBN 978-1-52942-030-2.

116. Dempsey, Amy (2018). Modern Art.

Thamed & Hudson. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-500-
29322-5.

117. Celac, Carabela & Marcu-Lapadat 2017,

p. 72.

118. Hopkins 2014, p. 175.

119. Hopkins 2014, p. 176.

120. Celac, Carabela & Marcu-Lapadat 2017,
p. 181.

121. Dempsey, Amy (2018). Modern Art.

Thamed & Hudson. pp. 92, 93. ISBN 978-0-
500-29322-5.

122. Hopkins 2014, p. 174, 175, 176.

123. Watkin, David (2022). A History of Western

Architecture. Laurence King. pp. 663, 664.
ISBN 978-1-52942-030-2.

124. Watkin, David (2022). A History of Western

Architecture. Laurence King. p. 663.
ISBN 978-1-52942-030-2.

125. Gura, Judith (2017). Postmodern Design

Complete. Thames & Hudson. p. 53.
ISBN 978-0-500-51914-1.
126. Wilhide, Elizabeth. Design The Whole
Story. Thames & Hudson. p. 416.
ISBN 978-0-500-29687-5.

127. Gura, Judith (2017). Postmodern Design

Complete. Thames & Hudson. p. 121.
ISBN 978-0-500-51914-1.

128. Watkin, David (2022). A History of Western

Architecture. Laurence King. p. 665.
ISBN 978-1-52942-030-2.

129. "77 West Wacker Drive Interior (1992)" (htt

ps://www.are.na/block/14220675) .
are.na. Retrieved 3 September 2023.

130. Gura, Judith (2017). Postmodern Design

Complete. Thames & Hudson. p. 77.
ISBN 978-0-500-51914-1.
131. Gura, Judith (2017). Postmodern Design
Complete. Thames & Hudson. p. 65.
ISBN 978-0-500-51914-1.

132. Eleanor Gibson. "Seven of Robert Venturi's

best postmodern projects" (https://www.d
ezeen.com/2018/09/19/robert-venturi-be
st-postmodern-architecture-projects/) .
dezeen.com. Retrieved 25 June 2023.

133. "The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace

(1992)" (https://www.are.na/block/14220
899) . are.na. Retrieved 3 September
2023.

134. Gray, George T. (2022). An Introduction to

the History of Architecture, Art & Design.
Sunway University Press. p. 265.
ISBN 978-967-5492-24-2.
135. "Philippe Starck, a pair of 'Louis Ghost'
armchairs, Kartell. - Bukowskis" (https://w
ww.smow.com/philippe-starck/louis-ghos
t.html) . smow.com. Retrieved 19 June
2023.

136. Watkin, David (2022). A History of Western

Architecture. Laurence King. p. 660.
ISBN 978-1-52942-030-2.

137. Watkin, David (2022). A History of Western

Architecture. Laurence King. pp. 660, 661,
663. ISBN 978-1-52942-030-2.

138. Watkin, David (2022). A History of Western

Architecture. Laurence King. p. 673.
ISBN 978-1-52942-030-2.
139. "Neo-classicist Architecture.
Traditionalism. Historicism" (http://arch-to
ur.blogspot.com/2009/03/neo-classicist-a
rchitecture.html) .

140. Driehaus Prize for New Classical

Architecture at Notre Dame SoA (http://ar
chitecture.nd.edu/about/driehaus-prize/)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20
170210100930/http://architecture.nd.ed
u/about/driehaus-prize/) 2017-02-10 at
the Wayback Machine – Together, the
$200,000 Driehaus Prize and the $50,000
Reed Award represent the most significant
recognition for classicism in the
contemporary built environment.; retained
March 7, 2014
References
Celac, Mariana; Carabela, Octavian;
Marcu-Lapadat, Marius (2017).
Bucharest Architecture – an annotated
guide. Order of Architects of Romania.
ISBN 978-973-0-23884-6.

Clark, Kenneth (1976). The Romantic

Rebellion: Romantic versus Classic Art.
Omega. ISBN 0-86007-718-7.

de Martin, Henry (1925). Le Style Louis

XVI (in French). Flammarion.

Fortenberry, Diane (2017). The Art

Museum (https://books.google.com/bo
oks?id=YsxDswEACAAJ) (Revised ed.).
London: Phaidon Press. ISBN 978-0-
7148-7502-6. Archived (https://web.arch
ive.org/web/20210423220204/https://b
ooks.google.com/books?id=YsxDswEA
CAAJ) from the original on 2021-04-23.
Retrieved 2021-04-23.

Gontar, Cybele (October 2003).

"Neoclassicism" (http://www.metmuseu
m.org/toah/hd/neoc_1/hd_neoc_1.ht
m) . New York: The Metropolitan
Museum of Art.

Hodge, Susie (2019). The Short Story of

Architecture. Laurence King Publishing.
ISBN 978-1-7862-7370-3.
Hopkins, Owen (2014). Architectural
Styles: A Visual Guide. Laurence King.
ISBN 978-178067-163-5.

Honour, Hugh (1968). Neo-classicism.

Style and Civilisation. Penguin..
Reprinted 1977.

Hunt, Lynn (1998). "Freedom of Dress in

Revolutionary France". In Melzer, Sara E.;
Norberg, Kathryn (eds.). From the Royal
to the Republican Body: Incorporating
the Political in Seventeenth- and
Eighteenth-Century France. University of
California Press. ISBN 9780520208070.

Jones, Denna, ed. (2014). Architecture

The Whole Story. Thames & Hudson.
ISBN 978-0-500-29148-1.

Lăzărescu, Cezar; Cristea, Gabriel;

Lăzărescu, Elena (1972). Arhitectura
Românească în Imagini (in Romanian).
Editura Meridiane.

Novotny, Fritz. Painting and Sculpture in

Europe, 1780–1880 (2nd (reprinted
1980) ed.).

Rifelj, Carol De Dobay (2010). Coiffures:

Hair in Nineteenth-Century French
Literature and Culture (https://books.go
ogle.com/books?id=fFdBoGMJktgC) .
University of Delaware Press.
ISBN 9780874130997.
Further reading
Brown, Kevin (2017). Artist and Patrons:
Court Art and Revolution in Brussels at
the end of the Ancien Regime, Dutch
Crossing, Taylor and Francis (http://ww
w.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/030
96564.2017.1299964)

Eriksen, Svend. Early Neoclassicism in

France (1974)

Friedlaender, Walter (1952). David to

Delacroix (originally published in
German; reprinted 1980)

Gromort, Georges, with introductory

essay by Richard Sammons (2001). The
Elements of Classical Architecture
(Classical America Series in Art and
Architecture) (http://www.books-by-isbn.
com/0-393/0393730514-The-Elements-
of-Classical-Architecture-Georges-Grom
ort-Henry-Hope-Reed-0-393-73051-4.ht
ml)

Harrison, Charles; Paul Wood and Jason

Gaiger (eds) (2000; repr. 2003). Art in
Theory 1648–1815: An Anthology of
Changing Ideas

Hartop, Christopher, with foreword by

Tim Knox (2010).

The Classical Ideal: English Silver,

1760–1840, exh. cat. Cambridge: John
 Adamson ISBN 978-0-9524322-9-6.

Irwin, David (1966). English Neoclassical

Art: Studies in Inspiration and Taste

Johnson, James William. “What Was

Neo-Classicism?” Journal of British
Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, 1969, pp. 49–70.
online (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1751
67)

Rosenblum, Robert (1967).

Transformations in Late Eighteenth-
Century Art

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related
to Neoclassicism.
Neoclassicism in the "History of Art" (htt
p://www.all-art.org/history356_contents
_neoclassicism.html)

"Neoclassicism Style Guide" (http://ww

w.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/british
_galleries/bg_styles/Style05a/index.htm
l) . British Galleries. Victoria and Albert
Museum. Retrieved 2007-07-17.

Neo-classical drawings in the Flemish

Art Collection (http://www.vlaamsekuns
tcollectie.be/index.aspx?local=en&p=the
maspub&query=identifier=797&toppub=
797&page=1)

19th Century Sculpture Derived From

Greek Hellenistic Influence: (http://sculp
 turehellenisticinfluenced.blogspot.com)
Jacob Ungerer

The Neoclassicising of Pompeii (http://c

readm.solent.ac.uk/custom/rwpainting/
ch2/ch2.1.html)

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Neoclassicism&oldid=1174123429"

This page was last edited on 6 September 2023, at

13:42 (UTC). •
Content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0 unless
otherwise noted.