Arts

• • The European Enlightenment gave birth to Neoclassicism, an artistic and cultural period that placed importance on reason, order, and scientific inquiry.
• Neoclassicism

  • started in Europe in 1750 and ended in 1850.
• Neoclassicism lacks emotion and has clear form, shallow space, restrained colors, and strong vertical and horizontal lines.
• Self expression, newness, and improvisation are not qualities of Neoclassical Art.
• In the 1780s, a purer school of Neoclassical Art developed in France.
• French painters, including Jacques-Louis David

  • drew rousing subjects from roman history. this was to celebrate the virtues of fortitude, bravery, simplicity, and austerity.
• Gravitas

  • deep seriousness.
• Oath of the Horatii

  • possessed certain rhetorical qualities of gestures and posture.
• There were also patterns of drapery common in Greek Sculpture.
• While Baroque painters exploited intense colors and the dramatic qualities of light and atmosphere (Baroque paintings relied heavily on chiaroscuro and tenebrism), the Neoclassical painters went for outline and linear design.
• Neoclassical painters were inspired by ancient Greek and Roman mythology and history as told in poetry.
• Homer

  • authored Iliad and Odyssey.
• Many Neoclassical painters also portrayed important events from the Medieval period and works by Dante.
• They valued historical accuracy of settings, costumes, and other details in their paintings.
• Neoclassical landscape, historical compositions, and portraiture have classical themes that highlight the ideals of simplicity and balance, logic and order, and realism and clarity.
• The Penitent Mary Magdalene; Immaculate Conception

  • paintings of Anton Raphael Mengs.
• Its Neoclassical counterpart valued the calmness and stillness of Greek sculptures - figures had upright calm poses and composed postures, as can be seen in the works of Antonio Canova.
• Neoclassical Sculpture was also frontal, a clear opposition to the dynamism in Baroque Works.
• Apollo Crowning Himself; Napoleon

  • sculptures of Antonio Canova
• In Europe, the first Neoclassical structures were built side by side with baroque structures; they have been erected as if to counter the ostentatious Baroque buildings.
• England

  home of early Neoclassical architecture, such as the:

  • Cathedral Church of St. Paul the Apostle
  • the Royal Chelsea Hospital
  • the Royal Observatory in Greenwich
• Sir Christopher Wren

  • designed early Neoclassical architecture.
• Neoclassical buildings are known for the following characteristics:

  1. clean and elegant lines
  2. simplicity of geometric forms
  3. grandeur of scales
• Columns

  • have been originally designed to support the weight of the structure.
• facade

  • usually long and flat
• roof

  • usually horizontal
• Temple

  • developed during Neoclassical Period as a result of a wider familiarity with ancient Greek and Roman ruins.
• peristyle

  • line of columns around a building.
• British Museum in London; Pantheon in Paris

  • two of the most famous Neoclassical temple-style buildings.
• British Museum was designed by Sir Robert Smirke.
• Pantheon in Paris was designed by Jacques-Germain Soufflot.
• Palladian Architecture

  • derives its name from Andrea Palladio.
• Andrea Palladio

  • one of the most influential architects of late Italian Renaissance.
• Robert Adam

  • was known for many country houses he designed, and he is one of the most well-known Palladian Architects in Britain during the Neoclassical Period.
• United States Capitol; White House

  • most famous of Palladian Buildings.
• Classical Block Building

  • features a massive square or rectangular block with a classical detail-rich exterior and a flat roof.
• Henri Labrouste

  • one of the early classical block architects, whose masterwork is the iconic Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve in Paris.
• Palais Garnier (Paris Opera House)

  • was designed by Charles Garnier.
• Oedipus Rex

  • protagonist of the play.
• Queen Jocasta

  • Wife of Oedipus Rex, at the end revealed as his mother).