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Neoclassicism
Top: Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, by Antonio Canova, 1787, marble, Louvre
Second: Cupid Driving a Chariot Pulled by Griffins, by Michelangelo Maestri, c. 1800
Third: Napoleon's bath of the Château de Rambouillet, Rambouillet, France, painted by Godard and Jean Vasserot, 1806
Bottom: Detail with swans and rinceaux on a vase; produced by Antoine Béranger, Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, and the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory, hard-paste porcelain with gilded bronze mounts, Louvre
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Classicism
Classical antiquity
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20th-century neoclassicism

Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as 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 due to the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann during the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Its popularity expanded throughout 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, eventually competing with Romanticism. In architecture, the style endured throughout the 19th, 20th, and into the 21st century.[5][6]

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 Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece, and drawn directly from 16th-century Renaissance Classicism. Each "neo"-classicism movement selects some models among the range of possible classics that are available to it, and ignores others. Between 1765 and 1830, Neoclassical proponents—writers, speakers, patrons, collectors, artists and sculptors—paid homage to an idea of the artistic generation associated with Phidias, but 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 discovery of ancient Palmyra's "Rococo" art through engravings in Robert Wood's The Ruins of Palmyra came as a revelation. With Greece largely unexplored and considered a dangerous territory of the Ottoman Empire, Neoclassicists' appreciation of Greek architecture was predominantly mediated through drawings and engravings which were subtly smoothed and regularized, "corrected" and "restored" 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.[citation needed]

History

[edit]

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]

The Italian archaeologist and art theorist Giovanni Pietro Bellori is considered the forerunner of Neoclassicism. In 1664 he delivered a lecture on the ‘Ideal’ in art at the Accademia di San Luca, Rome, which became the seminal statement of idealist art theory.[12] Bellori's lecture had a decisive influence on European academic theory and later became the theoretical basis of the Neoclassicism preached by Winckelmann.[13]

Johann Joachim Winckelmann, often called "the father of archaeology"[14]

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",[15] 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".[16]

The Industrial Revolution saw global transition of human economy towards more efficient and stable manufacturing processes.[17] There was tremendous material advancement and increased prosperity.[18] 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.[19] "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.[20]

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.[21] 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.[22]

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.[23]

Painting, drawing and printmaking

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See also: Capriccio (art)

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,[35] by the artist whom his friend Winckelmann described as "the greatest artist of his own, and perhaps of later times".[36] The drawings, subsequently turned into prints, of John Flaxman used very simple line drawing (thought to be the purest classical medium[37]) and figures mostly in profile to depict The Odyssey and other subjects, and once "fired the artistic youth of Europe" but are now "neglected",[38] while the history paintings of Angelica Kauffman, mainly a portraitist, are described as having "an unctuous softness and tediousness" by Fritz Novotny.[39] 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".[40] 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".[41] The Swiss-born Henry Fuseli 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.[42]

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.[43]

Sculpture

[edit]

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.[49] 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.[50][51]

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.[52] 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.[53] 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,[54] 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.[55] 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,[56] 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

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Main articles: Neoclassical architecture, Louis XVI style, Directoire style, Empire style, Adam style, and Biedermeier
Hôtel Gouthière, Rue Pierre-Bullet no. 6, Paris, possibly by J. Métivier, 1780[57]
"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.[58]

Neoclassicism first gained influence in Britain 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 the Great's lover, Count Grigory 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" and 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.[according to whom?]

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 "United States Capitol" in Washington, D.C.; and in Josiah 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 the Great, in St. Petersburg, Russia.

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,[59] 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".[60]

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,[59] 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".[61] An earlier phase of the style was called the Adam style in Great Britain.

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.[who?] The centres of several European cities, notably Saint 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

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Louis XVI style (1760–1789)

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Main article: Louis XVI style

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.[72] 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.[73]

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 heavily 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).[74]

Directoire style (1789–1804)

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Main article: Directoire style

Empire style (1804–1815)

[edit]
Main article: Empire style

Neoclassicism was representative for the new French society that exited the revolution, setting the tone in all life fields, including art. The Jacquard machine was invented during this period (which revolutionised the entire sewing system, manual until then). One of the dominant colours was red, decorated with gilt bronze. Bright colours were also used, including white, cream, violet, brown, blue, dark red, with little ornaments of gilt bronze. Interior architecture included wood panels decorated with gilt reliefs (on a white background or a coloured one). Motifs were placed geometrically. The walls were covered in stuccos, wallpaper fabrics. Fireplace mantels were 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 consisted of simple rectangular panels, decorated with a Pompeian-inspired central figure. Empire fabrics are damasks with a blue 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 was also used for upholstery).[81]

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.[82]

Germany

[edit]
Main articles: Biedermeier and Gründerzeit

Neoclassical architecture became widespread as a symbol of wealth and power in Germany, mostly in what was then Prussia. Karl Friedrich Schinkel built many prominent buildings in this style, including the Altes Museum in Berlin. While the city remained dominated by Baroque city planning, his architecture and functional style provided the city with a distinctly neoclassical center.

His Bauakademie is considered one of the forerunners of modern architecture due to its hithertofore relatively streamlined façade of the building

Italy

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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 Italian unification in 1861. Thus, Italian art went through a series of minor and major changes in style.

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 Andrea Palladio and saw in Luigi Vanvitelli 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

[edit]

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 started building together with Romanian artisans, usually prepared in foreign schools or academies. Romanian architects studied 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[87][88]

Ukraine

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  • Building of the former library, Kherson
    Building of the former library, Kherson
  • Resttant "Prima", Kropyvnytskyi
    Resttant "Prima", Kropyvnytskyi
  • Teatral'na street (earlier Dvortsova) Kropyvnytskyi
    Teatral'na street (earlier Dvortsova) Kropyvnytskyi

In some Ukrainian cities, the rich architectural heritage of the times of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires has been preserved, reflecting the fact that the Ukrainian ethnic lands for most of history were under control of other states. A vivid example is Teatralna street in the city of Kropyvnytskyi, all buildings of which were built in the 19th century in the neoclassical style by invited European architects.[89][90]

Russia and the Soviet Union

[edit]

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 the 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.[91]

With the crackdown on architect's 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 Soviet Union 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.

United Kingdom

[edit]
Main articles: Adam style and Wedgwood

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 leaves), 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.[98]

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.

United States

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Main article: Federal style

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 a 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).[102]

Gardens

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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.[103]

Fashion

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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.[104] 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.[105] 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 "coiffure 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,[106] 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.[107]

Music

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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. Ottorino 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

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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 World War I. 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.[110]

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

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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, the 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.[118]

Neoclassicism and Totalitarian regimes

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Main articles: Socialist Realism, Nazi architecture, and Rationalism (architecture)

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.[125] 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 riddled 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 aryan 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 visitors of both exhibitions could compare the art labeled by the regime as 'good' and 'bad'. With a similar attitude, the regime closed in 1931 the Bauhaus, an avant-garde art school in Dessau that was extremely influential post-war. It reopened in Berlin in 1932, but was 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.[126]

In Romania, towards the late 1930s, influenced by the Autocratic tendency of King Carol II, multiple state buildings were 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 World War I.

Postmodernism

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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.'[139] 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.[140]

Architecture in the 21st century

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Main article: New Classical Architecture

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.[142] 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.[143]

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

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Notes

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References

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Further reading

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Neoclassicism

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was a Western movement in the , , , and literature that emerged in the mid-18th century and persisted into the early , characterized by a revival of classical Greek and Roman forms emphasizing , , proportion, and restrained . This style sought to emulate the perceived rational harmony and moral clarity of antiquity, drawing directly from archaeological evidence such as the excavations at and Pompeii, which revealed the sophistication of and prompted a reevaluation of historical . The movement arose as a deliberate reaction against the ornate exuberance and perceived frivolity of and styles, which had dominated European with their emphasis on dramatic curves, , and emotional excess. Proponents, influenced by Enlightenment ideals of reason and empirical observation, favored linear clarity, balanced compositions, and themes from or history to convey virtues like and civic duty. Key figures included the German scholar , whose writings championed the "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur" of as an ideal for moral and aesthetic reform. In , artists like exemplified this through works depicting revolutionary and heroic subjects with stark, sculptural forms; in , produced marble figures evoking ancient prototypes with lifelike poise and idealized anatomy. Architecturally, Neoclassicism manifested in grand public edifices such as the in and the neoclassical buildings of , which employed columns, pediments, and domes to symbolize republican virtues and rational . Its influence extended to and interiors, promoting geometric motifs and classical orders over the playful asymmetries of prior eras. While celebrated for restoring discipline and universality to art amid social upheavals like the , Neoclassicism's rigid adherence to antique models later drew criticism for stifling innovation, paving the way for Romanticism's embrace of and emotion.

Philosophical and Intellectual Foundations

Rationalist and Enlightenment Influences

Neoclassicism arose amid the Enlightenment's prioritization of reason, empiricism, and human progress through rational inquiry, fostering an aesthetic that emulated the perceived logical clarity of ancient Greco-Roman models over the preceding era's stylistic exuberance. This intellectual movement, spanning roughly 1685 to 1815, critiqued superstition and dogma in favor of evidence-based understanding, paralleling neoclassicism's advocacy for simplicity, symmetry, and moral restraint in artistic expression. Enlightenment thinkers viewed classical antiquity as embodying rational governance and civic order, which informed the neoclassical rejection of Baroque emotionalism—rooted in Counter-Reformation dramatics—and Rococo's ornate frivolity, often linked to aristocratic indulgence under absolutist regimes. Philosophers such as (1694–1778) and (1689–1755) contributed causally by championing empirical scrutiny and classical republican principles, which resonated in neoclassicism's structured forms designed to evoke virtue and harmony rather than sensory overload. 's essays, including those in Philosophical Dictionary (1764), extolled ancient rationalism while decrying modern excesses, aligning with the movement's aim to restore disciplined aesthetics that promoted ethical clarity over decorative chaos. Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws (1748) analyzed Roman institutional balance as a model for stable polities, influencing neoclassical preferences for proportional, unadorned designs that symbolized moral and social equilibrium. These ideas countered the perceived decadence of courtly styles, positioning neoclassicism as a visual embodiment of Enlightenment causality—where form derived from function and reason supplanted arbitrary ornament. Empirical discoveries bolstered this rational foundation, as excavations at commencing in 1738 under of the Two Sicilies unearthed intact Roman frescoes, mosaics, and sculptures, supplying direct evidence of ancient restraint and proportion. These findings, disseminated through publications like Le Antichità di Ercolano (1757–1792), validated Enlightenment by revealing antiquity's understated elegance, which contrasted sharply with Rococo's asymmetry and gilt excess, thus catalyzing a principled revival aimed at fostering civic-minded sobriety. Subsequent digs at Pompeii from 1748 amplified this impact, providing quantifiable artifacts—such as measured architectural remnants—that underscored causal links between ancient functionality and enduring harmony, reinforcing neoclassicism's departure from ornamentalism toward forms conducive to rational virtue.

Key Theoretical Contributions

's Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (History of the Art of Antiquity), published in 1764, laid foundational theoretical groundwork for Neoclassicism by positing that the highest art embodies "noble simplicity and calm grandeur" (edle Einfalt und stille Größe), qualities he identified in as reflective of moral and ethical ideals aligned with truth. Winckelmann argued that such aesthetics derived from the ' free political environment, enabling art to express serene rationality over emotional excess, urging modern artists to emulate these verifiable ancient models rather than medieval or contemporary distortions. This emphasis on empirical observation of artifacts, including measurements from sites like and Pompeii, prioritized causal links between artistic form and societal , rejecting subjective invention in favor of historically attested proportions. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Laokoön (1766) complemented Winckelmann by delineating boundaries between media: should depict static, bodily forms in space to convey ideal beauty, while narrates sequential actions over time. Analyzing the Hellenistic , Lessing contended that its restrained expression of suffering—unlike Virgil's more agonized poetic account—exemplifies visual art's superior capacity for timeless, moralizing composure, avoiding the temporal distortions of . This critique reinforced Neoclassical doctrine by insisting on medium-specific fidelity to ancient principles, where and capture pregnant moments of ethical equilibrium rather than dramatic flux. Neoclassical theory further grounded aesthetics in quantifiable ancient metrics, such as those outlined by in (c. 30–15 BCE), which prescribed proportional harmonies like the 1:2 ratio for human height to foot length, revived as empirical standards for figural representation. Winckelmann and adherents integrated these ratios—verified through direct measurement of surviving statues—over fanciful deviations, asserting that adherence to such geometric certainties ensured art's moral didacticism by mirroring nature's rational order. This approach dismissed unmeasured ornamentation, favoring causal realism in form to evoke , as evidenced in Winckelmann's cataloging of Polyclitan contrapposto metrics for balanced, heroic poses.

Emphasis on Civic Virtue and Moral Order

Neoclassicists regarded art as a vehicle for moral edification, designed to elevate public character by exemplifying virtues like and communal responsibility, drawn from the rational exemplars of Greco-Roman . This stemmed from Enlightenment convictions that aesthetic forms mirroring antiquity's disciplined restraint could instill ethical discipline in viewers, countering the perceived moral laxity of ornate predecessors like . In practice, theoretical writings urged artists to prioritize subjects embodying stoic resolve, such as sacrificial oaths or resolute , to promote societal cohesion amid political upheavals. Central to this emphasis was the revival of Plutarch's (c. 100–120 AD), which chronicled figures like and Brutus as paragons of civic integrity, resisting tyrannical passions through principled action. Neoclassical proponents adapted these biographies to underscore art's didactic role, arguing that repeated exposure to such unyielding models cultivated personal fortitude against collective , as evidenced by the republic's historical survival mechanisms. Unlike indulgent narratives favoring emotional turmoil, these depictions favored empirical precedents from antiquity, where virtue-driven governance yielded measurable endurance in institutions and structures. Theoretically, this moral framework privileged causal linkages between form and function: classical motifs were not ornamental but evolved to reinforce hierarchical order and rational restraint, as substantiated by archaeological recoveries revealing durable, purpose-built artifacts from the 5th century BC onward. Critics of alternative aesthetics, including later romantic tendencies, noted their divergence from these tested legacies, which prioritized verifiable outcomes of stability over unbridled sentiment.

Historical Development

Origins and Archaeological Catalysts (Mid-18th Century)

Systematic excavations at Herculaneum began in 1738 under Charles III of Bourbon, followed by those at Pompeii starting in 1748, unearthing well-preserved Roman frescoes, mosaics, and architectural elements that demonstrated a stark simplicity and functional elegance in ancient domestic spaces. These findings offered tangible evidence of Roman antiquity's restraint, contrasting sharply with the ornate, asymmetrical flourishes of prevailing Rococo decoration, which emphasized playful asymmetry and pastel exuberance from the 1730s onward. The artifacts, including unembellished wall paintings and structural forms, provided empirical data that undermined Renaissance-era idealizations of classical grandeur, instead highlighting causal links between ancient utility and aesthetic purity. By the 1750s, these archaeological revelations fueled a deliberate backlash against Rococo's perceived moral and visual frivolity, as evidenced in early architectural shifts toward measured proportions and minimal ornament. In Britain, , having conducted an extended Grand Tour from 1754 to 1758 studying Roman ruins firsthand, pioneered neoclassical applications in projects like the interiors of starting in 1762, integrating motifs such as flat arches and shallow reliefs derived from observed . Adam's designs rejected Rococo's curvaceous excess, favoring evidence-based revivals of classical observed in sites like the at . The , a standard educational itinerary for European elites involving direct inspection of Italian ruins from the early 1700s peaking , disseminated these empirical insights, enabling travelers to prioritize verifiable ancient forms over fanciful reconstructions. Participants, including architects and patrons, returned with sketches and casts that informed initial neoclassical commissions, such as Adam's adaptations of Pompeian room layouts, thus catalyzing the style's spread through firsthand causal engagement with antiquity rather than textual abstraction. This observational practice underscored a shift toward archaeological fidelity, laying groundwork for broader adoption by challenging the decorative indulgences that had dominated since the .

Expansion During Revolutions and Empires (Late 18th-Early 19th Century)

The , commencing in 1789, propelled neoclassicism as the preferred aesthetic for embodying republican ideals of liberty, virtue, and rational order, drawing inspiration from and Roman models perceived as exemplars of civic . Architects and artists repurposed existing structures to align with these principles; for instance, the , originally the Church of Sainte-Geneviève designed in neoclassical style from 1758, was secularized in 1791 and rededicated as a temple honoring revolutionary heroes like , whose remains were interred there that year, symbolizing a break from monarchical religion toward enlightened . This adoption evidenced neoclassicism's utility in public monuments, where its simplicity and symmetry conveyed moral restraint and collective purpose over individual extravagance. Under Bonaparte's regime, from his 1799 coup through the Empire's proclamation in 1804 until 1815, neoclassicism evolved into an instrument of imperial legitimacy, evoking Roman antiquity's grandeur while maintaining restraint to signal disciplined authority rather than absolutist opulence. commissioned extensive public works, such as the in 1806 and the larger initiated that year by Jean Chalgrin, both employing classical columns, pediments, and proportions to project eternal stability amid conquests. Painters like received state patronage for neoclassical depictions, including (1801), which used heroic, restrained forms to glorify military triumphs without excess. The proliferation of these commissions demonstrated neoclassicism's causal efficacy in bolstering regime perception, as its association with antiquity's enduring empires provided visual continuity between revolutionary rupture and imperial restoration, fostering public acquiescence through familiar symbols of ordered power. Napoleon's conquests further disseminated the style via administrative impositions in controlled territories, though its core application remained in French metropolitan projects that prioritized monumental scale for civic and propagandistic ends. This era's empirical output—dozens of neoclassical edifices and artworks—underscored the style's alignment with Enlightenment , enabling regimes to claim philosophical lineage from classical forebears.

Decline Amid Romanticism (Early-Mid 19th Century)

The defeat of at the in 1815 marked a pivotal turning point, as neoclassicism, closely tied to the imperial grandeur and rational order of the French Empire, lost its political and cultural . With the restoration of monarchies and a backlash against the excesses of revolutionary and Napoleonic ideology, artists and patrons increasingly rejected the restrained, antiquity-inspired forms of neoclassicism in favor of 's emphasis on emotional intensity, natural irregularity, and individual expression. This shift reflected broader disillusionment with Enlightenment , as evidenced by the rapid popularity of Romantic literature and that celebrated subjective passion over classical harmony./03:The_Effects_of_Colonization(1700_CE_-_1800_CE)/3.04:Neoclassicism_and_Romanticism(1760-1860)) Romanticism's ascendancy prioritized and the sublime, eroding neoclassicism's dominance by the 1820s through works that evoked personal turmoil and untamed nature rather than moral exemplars from antiquity. Poets like , whose satirical yet passionately irregular verses influenced visual artists, exemplified this cultural pivot toward expressive freedom, contrasting neoclassicism's disciplined adherence to classical models. In painting, Eugène Delacroix's dynamic compositions, such as (1830), gained acclaim for their dramatic energy, while neoclassical holdouts like faced criticism for rigidity. By the , Paris Salons showed a marked preference for such sentimental and emotive subjects, with jury selections increasingly favoring Romantic history paintings over purely restrained neoclassical narratives, as seen in the growing rejections of formulaic classical revivals. The , accelerating from the with of iron and , further diverged artistic practice from neoclassical precedents by demanding functional designs for factories, railways, and urban infrastructure that classical could not accommodate. Architects turned to iron-framed structures and Gothic revivals for their adaptability to mechanized scale, empirically rendering temple-like facades impractical for Britain's burgeoning industrial cities, where over 1,000 cotton mills operated by 1840. This material and societal transformation underscored neoclassicism's limitations in addressing modern causal demands, hastening its marginalization by mid-century as Romantic individualism aligned better with the era's turbulent social changes.

Core Aesthetic Characteristics

Principles of Simplicity, Symmetry, and Restraint

Neoclassical theory elevated simplicity and restraint as antidotes to the ornate excesses of preceding styles, emphasizing forms that reveal underlying geometric truth without distraction. , in his 1755 Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst, prescribed "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur" (edle Einfalt und stille Grösse) as the ideal, arguing that achieved universality through unembellished composure that mirrored rational order. This restraint stemmed from a causal understanding that superfluous ornament impairs perceptual clarity, diverting attention from the structural integrity and proportional harmony that define enduring beauty. Symmetry formed the structural backbone of these principles, rooted in Vitruvius's (c. 30–15 BCE), which defined symmetria as the proportional correspondence of parts to the whole, often scaled to human bodily modules for empirical commensurability. Neoclassicists applied this through verifiable ratios, such as modular systems where column heights, entablatures, and facades adhered to fixed multiples, ensuring bilateral balance that conveys stability and invites rational apprehension. Such avoided asymmetry's perceived disorder, prioritizing causal efficacy in design where balanced elements distribute visual weight evenly, enhancing both aesthetic coherence and practical durability. Proportions drew from ancient survivals' measurable geometries, including approximations to the (φ ≈ 1.618), observed in structures like the Parthenon's facade where segment ratios approach this value, fostering harmonic resonance through self-similar scaling. Though debates persist on ancient architects' intentional use—favoring empirical modular systems over abstract irrationals—neoclassicists revived these ratios deliberately, testing them against ruins to derive rules that generate perceptual harmony via mathematical inevitability rather than subjective whim. Restraint thus critiqued ornament as a veil over form's truth, insisting that pure lines and volumes alone suffice for moral and intellectual elevation, unclouded by decorative proliferation.

Revival of Classical Forms and Motifs

Neoclassicists revived architectural orders and motifs from and with a commitment to empirical accuracy, deriving elements such as triglyphs—rectangular blocks with three vertical grooves—from Doric friezes, volutes from Ionic capitals, and acanthus leaf volutes from Corinthian examples, often measured directly from excavated artifacts rather than stylized inventions. These motifs, cataloged in ' De architectura following its 1486 printed edition, provided proportional guidelines that neoclassic designers adapted to emphasize structural clarity and proportional harmony, as seen in the precise replication of triglyph spacing to match ancient panels. The acanthus leaf, stylized from the Mediterranean plant , featured prominently in Corinthian capitals and ornamental borders, with neoclassic applications faithfully reproducing the layered, curling foliage observed in Roman remains to evoke organic yet ordered growth. Triglyphs served not merely decoratively but as functional echoes of wooden beam ends in early Doric temples, their vertical fluting and alternation with metopes underscoring a rational progression from primitive construction to refined stonework, which neoclassicists replicated to affirm the motifs' proven durability over centuries. This fidelity stemmed from archaeological evidence, including Pompeian frescoes and sculptures, revealing the motifs' resilience in enduring structures, interpreted as validation of their superior engineering and aesthetic balance. In sculptural forms, neoclassic artists idealized the human figure using proportions derived from ' 5th-century BCE canon, which prescribed a seven-head-to-body ratio and contraposto stance, verified through caliper measurements of Roman copies of Greek bronzes like the . This approach prioritized measurable symmetry—such as the finger-to-forearm relation as 1:2—over expressive distortion, aiming to recapture the perceived perfection of classical physiques that had persisted in marble replicas, thereby linking neoclassic works to the causal endurance of ancient ideals rooted in mathematical precision and anatomical realism. The canon's revival underscored a belief in these ratios' timeless efficacy, as their survival in artifacts suggested an intrinsic harmony aligning form with human scale and gravitational stability.

Differentiation from Baroque Excess and Rococo Ornamentation

Neoclassicism emerged as a deliberate reaction against the style's emphasis on dynamic movement, undulating curves, and illusionistic drama, which dominated European art from the early through figures like and . These elements, intended to convey religious fervor and monarchical power through , were critiqued by neoclassicists for prioritizing emotional manipulation over rational harmony. , in his 1764 Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, condemned such approaches as deviations from antiquity's "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur," arguing that Baroque forms distorted nature's serene proportions into restless exaggeration. This purge favored static geometric balance, evident in the straight lines and planar compositions of neoclassical works, which avoided the Baroque's fatiguing spatial contortions. In parallel, neoclassicism repudiated 's asymmetrical flourishes, shell-like motifs, and pastel-toned whimsy, which proliferated in French decorative arts from the 1730s under Louis XV's courtly patronage. , an attenuated evolution of ornamentation, prioritized intimate playfulness and sensory delight, often manifesting in convoluted work and genre scenes of aristocratic leisure, but was derided by Enlightenment critics as emblematic of moral and intellectual decay—escapist confections detached from empirical reality or civic purpose. Winckelmann and contemporaries like Antoine Quatremère de Quincy viewed these traits as frivolous accretions, antithetical to the disciplined restraint of Greek and Roman models, prompting a stylistic cleansing toward unadorned surfaces and proportional clarity. By the 1760s, this shift gained institutional traction in art academies across Europe, where preferences pivoted from Rococo's perceived degeneracy to classical austerity. The French , influenced by excavations at and Pompeii starting in 1738, increasingly mandated study of antique casts over ornate sketches, with salon exhibitions from 1763 onward favoring restrained compositions that embodied moral order. Similar reforms in the Prussian under Winckelmann's indirect sway prioritized linear draftsmanship, amassing from comparative analyses showing classical forms' superior endurance in evoking timeless over transient excess./03:The_Effects_of_Colonization(1700_CE__1800_CE)/3.04:Neoclassicism_and_Romanticism(1760-1860)) This academy-driven consensus, rooted in archaeological rather than subjective , underscored neoclassicism's causal commitment to purging prior styles' irrational embellishments for verifiable historical fidelity.

Neoclassicism in Visual Arts

Painting: Historical and Moral Themes

Neoclassical painters elevated to convey moral and ethical lessons drawn from ancient Greco-Roman narratives, prioritizing stoic virtue, civic duty, and over personal emotion or ornamentation. This approach rejected the sensuous ambiguity of , favoring linear clarity and compositional restraint to underscore rational ideals of order and heroism. Artists like employed these themes to model behaviors aligned with Enlightenment-era , depicting figures in timeless, unadorned poses that evoked the gravity of antiquity. A seminal work is David's (1784, oil on canvas, 329.8 × 424.5 cm), which portrays three Roman brothers pledging allegiance to their father and in a ritual combat against the rival Curiatii family from . The composition divides into stark zones: the rigidly aligned Horatii extend swords in geometric precision, symbolizing unyielding patriotism and masculine resolve, while mourning women in the shadowed background represent subdued familial grief, prioritizing state over sentiment. Exhibited at the Salon of 1785, the painting encapsulated neoclassical moral imperatives—self-abnegation for collective honor—drawing from Livy's accounts of the third-century BCE to affirm virtues like loyalty and courage amid pre-Revolutionary tensions. David's preparatory drawings, including detailed compositional sketches and anatomical studies conducted during his Roman sojourns (1775–1781), ensured factual fidelity to classical proportions and architecture, such as the vaulted hall evoking Pompeian frescoes. This ethical focus extended to other canvases, where antiquity served as a didactic mirror for contemporary . In David's The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789, , 323 × 422 cm), the Brutus confronts the corpses of his traitorous sons with stoic detachment, illustrating paternal severity and republican justice over paternal affection, themes rooted in Livy's histories. Similarly, Angelica Kauffman's Cornelia Pointing to Her Children as Her Jewels (c. 1785, ) depicts the Roman matron Cornelia Gracchus rejecting material wealth in favor of her sons as true treasures, promoting maternal devotion to civic legacy and simplicity against luxury. These works employed a restrained palette and sharp contours—eschewing atmospheric blurring for delineated forms—to heighten narrative legibility, with empirical preparatory techniques like gridded underdrawings verifying spatial accuracy and proportional harmony derived from sculptures. Such methods underscored neoclassicism's commitment to truth through verifiable classical sources, positioning as a vehicle for moral instruction rather than mere aesthetic pleasure.

Sculpture: Idealized Human Forms

Neoclassical sculptors emphasized three-dimensional representations of the human body, striving for anatomical precision and emotional composure that echoed and Roman prototypes uncovered through 18th-century excavations, such as the and group. These works revived classical canons of proportion, favoring smooth, unblemished surfaces in to convey enduring and heroic poise over the dynamic of figures. The choice of , prized for its translucency and permanence, underscored a causal link between material resilience and the idealized subject's timeless moral fortitude. Antonio Canova's (1787–1793), carved from and measuring 155 cm × 168 cm, exemplifies this synthesis by capturing a pivotal moment from Apuleius's with balanced stasis amid implied motion. Cupid gently supports the awakening Psyche, their forms rendered with meticulous anatomical detail—subtle musculature, flowing drapery, and ethereal textures that mimic flesh and feather—while avoiding exaggeration to maintain neoclassical restraint. Canova drew directly from Greco-Roman influences, refining excavated ideals into a harmonious composition that prioritizes ethical over sensual excess. In portraiture, Jean-Antoine Houdon's bust of (1778), executed in after a life mask, integrated truthful with classical , depicting the philosopher's aged features—bald pate, wry smile, and lined brow—without flattery yet elevated through precise and dignified posture. This approach contrasted romantic by subordinating personal to universal proportions, reflecting neoclassicism's commitment to rational observation over emotive distortion. Such busts, often scaled to 70–80 cm in height, served as moral exemplars, their finish evoking the stoic endurance of ancient busts like those of Roman emperors.

Printmaking and Drawing: Reproductive Techniques

![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](./assets/The_ancient_Capitol_ascended_by_approximately_one_hundred_steps_..._Campidoglio_antico_a_cui_si_ascendeva_per_circa_cento_gradini_._._. 8 ) In neoclassicism, printmaking techniques such as etching and engraving were employed to produce faithful reproductions of ancient artifacts, enabling broader empirical study of classical forms beyond direct access to originals. These reproductive works prioritized precision and verifiability, reflecting the movement's emphasis on direct observation of antiquities over imaginative interpretation. Engravings after ancient gems gained prominence in the mid-18th century, following increased excavations and collections that revealed intricate classical . Skilled engravers created detailed prints of intaglios and cameos, such as those documented in publications like Johann Christian Felix von Lippert's Dactyliotheca (1755–1760), which cataloged over 15,000 gems with accompanying illustrations to facilitate scholarly analysis and artistic emulation. This method democratized access to miniaturized classical motifs, supporting neoclassical ideals of and restraint in . Giovanni Battista Piranesi advanced reproductive through his Vedute di Roma series, begun in the 1740s and expanded into the 1770s, depicting Roman ruins with archaeological fidelity. His prints, often measuring around 33.5 × 49.4 cm, captured structural details and spatial relationships accurately, serving as educational tools for architects and artists while inspiring neoclassical reconstructions. Drawings in neoclassicism frequently involved meticulous copies of ancient sculptures, training artists in idealized proportions and poses derived from Greco-Roman originals. These figure drawings, emphasizing outline and contour over shading, were reproduced via engravings, as seen in works after John Flaxman (1755–1826), whose 1795 illustrations for classical epics provided verifiable templates for moral and historical themes in . Such techniques underscored causal links between antique evidence and modern revival, fostering restraint against excess.

Architecture and Decorative Arts

Stylistic Evolutions: From Louis XVI to Empire

The (c. 1774–1792) represented an initial phase of neoclassicism in , characterized by delicate restraint and a return to and Roman forms, including straight columns, simple architraves, and minimal ornamentation departing from excess. This evolution is evident in structures like the at Versailles, built from 1762 to 1768 under architect , which exemplifies neoclassical proportions and symmetry in a compact pavilion form commissioned originally by but emblematic of the subsequent reign's aesthetic. The Directoire period (1795–1799), following the Revolution, introduced a transitional austerity in built forms, emphasizing geometric linearity, planar surfaces, and subdued neoclassical motifs to align with republican simplicity and ancient republican ideals, often with reduced decorative carving in public edifices and interiors. This phase bridged Louis XVI delicacy and impending imperial grandeur through strict proportions and functional emphasis, reflecting post-revolutionary economic and ideological constraints. Under the (1804–1815), neoclassicism scaled to monumental assertion for Napoleonic propaganda, incorporating massive classical orders, pediments, and friezes in structures like the and the principal , the latter commissioned on August 15, 1806, after the by I and designed by Jean-François-Thérèse Chalgrin in Corinthian neoclassical style to eternalize military triumphs. This era amplified symmetry and heroic motifs, transforming restrained elegance into imperial dominance while retaining core classical revival principles.

Decorative Elements: Columns, Pediments, and Friezes

![Ionic capitals illustration History of Art for Beginners Vol 3 Architecture.svg.png][float-right] Neoclassical architecture revived the classical column orders—Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—to impose proportional hierarchies and simulate structural integrity on facades. The , with its heavy, fluted shafts lacking bases and capped by plain, rounded echinus and capitals, conveyed solidity and was systematically applied in temple-like porticos to ground compositions visually. Ionic columns introduced slimmer proportions, added bases, and featured distinctive scrolls on capitals, enabling graduated elegance across building elevations. Corinthian variants, embellished with acanthus leaf volutes, reserved for upper tiers or climactic features, escalated ornamental complexity while adhering to modular ratios derived from ancient treatises. These orders were deployed to delineate load-bearing logic, with diameters and intercolumniations scaled empirically from Greek Doric temples like the , ensuring ornaments amplified rather than obscured tectonic clarity. Pediments, the triangular gables surmounting columnar entablatures, encapsulated neoclassical restraint by confining sculptural reliefs to the tympanum area, mirroring the low-relief narratives of ancient prototypes such as the Parthenon's east depicting Athena's birth, executed around 438 BCE. In neoclassical applications, these spaces hosted restrained allegories of or historical events, executed in shallow carving to avoid volumetric protrusion that could disrupt planar . For instance, the of the in , designed by and completed in 1790, features Pierre-François-Laurent Baduel's relief of France rising among the great men of the nation, subordinating narrative to the pediment's geometric frame. Such integrations causally enhanced facade legibility, directing the eye upward in a hierarchical progression without profusion. Friezes, the intermediary horizontal bands within entablatures, adopted Doric schemes of alternating triglyphs—vertical blocks mimicking beam ends—and panels for carved reliefs, or Ionic continuous figural processions, to rhythmically bind columns and . This empirical borrowing from Vitruvius's descriptions in (c. 30-15 BCE), disseminated via 18th-century editions, prioritized causal alignment with structural bays over autonomous decoration. Neoclassical friezes, often executed in or stone with minimal depth, exemplified restraint by limiting motifs to geometric or subdued mythological vignettes, as seen in the frieze of Robert Adam's Register House in , built 1774-1788, where triglyph-metope sequences underscore the building's rational order. By thus articulating divisions, friezes reinforced the facade's modular grid, preventing ornamental dominance and fostering perceptual stability.

Furniture and Interior Design Applications

Neoclassical furniture design applied ancient Greek and Roman motifs to domestic objects, emphasizing geometric simplicity, straight lines, and proportional symmetry to foster restraint in everyday environments. This approach contrasted with the curvaceous abundance of by prioritizing functional forms that evoked classical ideals of extended to private life. Cabinetmakers drew from archaeological discoveries, incorporating elements like fluted legs and motifs derived from paintings and excavated artifacts. George Hepplewhite's The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, published posthumously in 1788, exemplified this by featuring chairs with tapered, saber-like legs inspired by the Greek klismos form, which originated in vase depictions of ancient seating with curved sabre supports for stability and elegance. These designs used mahogany for its dense grain, enabling precise carving of clean, unadorned lines without reliance on heavy gilding, thus achieving durability through material properties rather than decorative excess. Mahogany's reddish hue and workability supported the neoclassical preference for polished surfaces that highlighted structural integrity over ornamental layering. In interiors, such furniture promoted ordered domestic spaces mirroring Enlightenment notions of rational self-discipline, with pieces like sideboards and console tables arranged symmetrically to reinforce spatial harmony. Gilt accents were minimized to bronze or mounts on key structural points, avoiding the profusion seen in prior styles and aligning with causal principles where form directly served utility and moral clarity. This restrained aesthetic influenced elite households across , where furnishings in rectilinear arrangements underscored personal as a microcosm of republican .

National and Regional Variations

France: Revolutionary and Imperial Phases

![Bust of Madame Récamier by Joseph Chinard, 1805–1806][float-right] During the , neoclassicism gained prominence in as artists and architects drew on and Roman models to evoke republican virtues of equality and civic duty, aligning the style's emphasis on order and simplicity with revolutionary ideals of rational governance over monarchical excess. , a central figure, produced history paintings such as The Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of His Sons in 1789, using stark neoclassical forms to underscore themes of sacrifice for the state, which resonated with revolutionary fervor. The , completed in 1790 under revolutionary repurposing from its original design by , exemplified this shift, its Corinthian portico and dome serving as a neoclassical for honoring revolutionary heroes like and Rousseau, symbolizing the transfer of legitimacy from church to secular state. Under the Napoleonic Empire from 1804 to 1815, neoclassicism evolved into the , retaining classical purity while incorporating imperial motifs like eagles and laurel wreaths to legitimize Napoleon's rule through associations with ancient Rome's grandeur, eschewing the ornamental frivolity of prior for a more austere, propagandistic aesthetic. Architects Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine, as Napoleon's preferred designers, oversaw projects such as the Vendôme Column, erected between 1806 and 1810 to commemorate the 1805 , its spiraling bronze reliefs modeled directly on and cast from captured enemy artillery, thereby embedding military triumphs in timeless classical form. , appointed First Painter to the Emperor in 1804, continued this vein with works like (1807), blending neoclassical clarity with scenes of imperial ceremony to project rational authority. This neoclassical framework provided causal continuity across regime upheavals, as its reliance on empirical antiquity—prioritizing geometric proportion and historical precedent over sentimental excess—ensured structural and symbolic endurance; monuments like the persisted through restorations and secular oscillations into the , while the Vendôme Column, despite in and subsequent rebuilding, underscored the style's resilience against ideological flux due to its apolitical formal rigor.

Britain and the United States: Republican Ideals

In Britain, neoclassicism manifested in the architectural works of , who from the 1760s pioneered a refined classical revival emphasizing symmetry, proportion, and ancient Roman motifs to suit the residences of the enlightened and . 's designs, such as the interiors of Osterley Park House completed between 1761 and 1780, integrated Etruscan-inspired friezes and balanced facades that symbolized rational order and , resonating with Whig interpretations of Britain's as a modern echo of ancient mixed governments blending monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements. This stylistic choice reflected a broader Anglo elite admiration for classical antiquity's emphasis on balanced authority and restraint, fostering continuity with republican precedents like those of Cicero's ideal commonwealth without endorsing outright . Across the Atlantic, the newly independent embraced neoclassicism to embody republican aspirations, with the U.S. Capitol's construction beginning in 1793 under William Thornton's winning design featuring a central rotunda and porticos derived from Greco-Roman temples. These elements, including the dome evoking the Roman Pantheon, served to project the federal government's legitimacy by invoking the architectural language of ancient republics, where structures symbolized collective self-rule and . Founders like , who influenced related projects such as his own (begun 1769, expanded neoclassically post-1780s), drew causal links between such forms and federalism's tripartite structure—executive, legislative, and judicial—mirroring Polybian models of checked authority to prevent tyranny, thereby embedding visual cues of equilibrium in the nation's civic core. This deliberate symbolism underscored neoclassicism's role in cultivating public virtue and institutional stability amid the republic's formative years.

Germany, Italy, and Eastern Europe: Romantic Infusions

In , neoclassicism evolved through the works of (1781–1841), whose projects from the 1810s to 1830s fused classical restraint with Romantic emphases on emotion, nature, and national identity. Schinkel's (1823–1830) exemplifies this synthesis, employing Doric colonnades and pediments for structural clarity while incorporating subtle Gothic-inspired elements and Prussian folk motifs to evoke and individual expression, aligning with the era's shift toward Romantic subjectivity within ordered forms. His designs, such as the Schauspielhaus (1819–1821), balanced neoclassical symmetry with atmospheric lighting and scenic integration, reflecting Prussia's post-Napoleonic quest for unified aesthetic and political revival. In , (1757–1822) anchored neoclassical , which extended to architecture and restorations, blending antique idealism with nascent . Canova's marble figures, like The Three Graces (1812–1816), influenced Venetian-area projects by promoting classical purity that resonated with patriotic fervor, as seen in restorations evoking Rome's grandeur amid 19th-century unification stirrings. His technical innovations—precise and dynamic posing—bridged to architectural adaptations, where neoclassical facades incorporated romantic historical nostalgia, fostering a cultural narrative of Italian rebirth without abandoning empirical classical precedents. Eastern European neoclassicism, notably in during Catherine the Great's reign (1762–1796), adapted classical models to autocratic imperatives, with later Romantic infusions via landscape and mythic elements. Palaces like Tsarskoye Selo's Cameron Gallery (1780s), designed by Charles Cameron, featured neoclassical colonnades and vaults inspired by Roman baths, serving imperial propaganda through ordered grandeur suited to absolutism. By the early , architects such as Giacomo Quarenghi integrated these with Romantic park ensembles and folkloric motifs, tempering rational symmetry with emotional evocations of Russia's expansive terrain and tsarist mythology, as in expansions (1780s–1810s). This empirical tailoring prioritized causal functionality—enduring stone for permanence—over unchecked sentiment, yielding hybrids resilient to climatic and political rigors.

Extensions to Other Domains

Gardens and Landscape Design

Neoclassical garden design revived the structured aesthetics of ancient estates, featuring symmetrical axes, geometric parterres, and integrated architectural elements like colonnades, statues, and temples to evoke contemplative serenity and rational order. These layouts drew directly from classical texts, including Pliny the Younger's descriptions of terraced gardens and shaded porticos at his Tuscan and Laurentian villas, prioritizing measured harmony over natural irregularity. In , André Le Nôtre's foundational work at Versailles from the 1660s to 1680s established expansive formal gardens with radiating avenues and water features, which later received neoclassical refinements under in the 1780s, including the redesign of six bosquets to incorporate restrained classical motifs amid the existing framework. This evolution tempered the site's grandeur with subtler antiquity-inspired simplicity, aligning with broader Enlightenment preferences for proportioned restraint. Across the , advanced neoclassical principles in the 1790s through designs blending formal parterres adjacent to manor houses with transitional parkland, as seen in his "Red Books" proposals for over 400 estates, where he favored geometric enclosures and classical follies to frame structured vistas rather than the unbounded "wild sublime" of prior styles. Repton's approach, detailed in works like his 1794 "Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening," emphasized empirical to impose orderly compositions that enhanced perceptual clarity and intellectual repose. Proponents of these gardens argued that their axial perspectives and balanced plantings facilitated rational , providing visual akin to the era's architectural ideals, though critics later decried the style's rigidity in favor of more emotive naturalism.

Fashion and Costume

Neoclassical fashion prioritized simplicity, , and classical drapery to embody moral restraint and rational proportion, reacting against the elaborate ostentation of and styles. Women's gowns adopted high waists positioned just below the bust, creating a columnar inspired by chitons and peploi, which were rectangular or garments draped and belted for fluid, vertical lines. This style, using lightweight or in white or pastel hues, emerged in the late and dominated through the , emphasizing empirical bodily over corseted artifice. Men's attire shifted post-French Revolution toward restrained forms, with tailcoats featuring fitted bodices and flared skirts in dark wool, paired with full-length replacing knee breeches, evoking the unadorned functionality of Roman togas in their clean, vertical emphasis. Tailcoats became standard from the to the , their structured yet unembellished lines promoting egalitarian discipline amid revolutionary ideals of simplicity over aristocratic excess. These garments causally reinforced social order by visually enacting Enlightenment virtues of and civic poise, as the rejection of ruffles, , and vibrant colors countered prior eras' indulgent displays, aligning attire with neoclassical advocacy for measured rationality in personal conduct.

Music: Structural Clarity and Emotional Restraint

Christoph Willibald Gluck's operatic reforms in the 1760s emphasized structural simplicity and dramatic integrity, stripping away Baroque-era excesses like elaborate arias and virtuosic ornamentation to prioritize the text's emotional truth. In works such as (premiered 1762 in ), Gluck simplified recitatives to serve narrative progression rather than showcase singer display, integrating orchestral accompaniment more tightly with vocal lines for unified expression. This approach, articulated in the preface to Alceste (1767), sought "noble simplicity" by subordinating musical elaboration to logical dramatic flow, reflecting Enlightenment demands for rationality over affective indulgence. In symphonic music, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart advanced these principles through sonata form, evident in his mature symphonies of the 1780s, where exposition, development, and recapitulation sections maintained proportional balance and thematic economy. Symphony No. 40 in G minor (composed 1788) exemplifies this with its concise motivic development and avoidance of harmonic overextension, favoring clarity of phrase structure over improvisatory freedom. Such forms replaced Baroque continuous variation with discrete, logically unfolding sections, enabling precise emotional modulation without unchecked expressivity. This neoclassical musical ethos privileged empirical proportions—such as symmetrical phrasing and tonal resolutions adhering to acoustic principles—over subjective Romantic effusion, yielding structures that analyses show align with perceptual universals of balance and resolution. Unlike Baroque polyphonic density or Romantic chromatic expansion, these techniques fostered restraint, with homophonic textures ensuring melodic lines dominated for direct communicative impact, as measured in period treatises on form. Empirical studies of listener responses confirm that such clarity enhances cross-cultural accessibility, contrasting the era-specific introspection of later styles.

Criticisms and Controversies

Romantic and Modernist Objections: Sterility and Rigidity

Romantic critics, exemplified by William Wordsworth in his 1802 revisions to the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, condemned neoclassical poetry for its mechanical imitation of classical forms, rigid rules of composition, and substitution of intellectual artifice for spontaneous emotion derived from common life experiences. This critique extended to visual arts, where figures like Eugène Delacroix implicitly rejected the perceived emotional barrenness of neoclassical sculpture and painting—likened by contemporaries to a "valley of dry bones" devoid of vital human warmth—favoring instead dynamic, individualized expression over balanced proportion and heroic restraint. Such objections prioritized subjective feeling and organic irregularity, often overlooking empirical evidence of neoclassicism's roots in ancient prototypes that demonstrated functional durability and communal resonance across millennia, as seen in the Parthenon's structural integrity enduring over 2,400 years despite seismic events. In the 1920s, Modernist architects and theorists, including in his 1923 manifesto Towards a New Architecture, dismissed neoclassicism as an obsolete revivalism antithetical to machine-age progress, arguing its symmetrical rigidity and historical ornament stifled functional innovation and adaptability to industrialized materials like . This view, prevalent in avant-garde circles such as the , framed neoclassical adherence to proportion and axial symmetry as creatively stagnant, ignoring data on the style's proven scalability in public infrastructure—evident in structures like the 18th-century U.S. Capitol extensions that accommodated population growth without aesthetic discord. Modernist advocacy for abstraction over tradition reflected an elite preference for novelty, yet empirical public surveys contradict this by showing persistent favor for neoclassical elements; for instance, a 2020 found 86% of preferred classical designs (columns, pediments) for federal courthouses over modernist glass-and-concrete forms, cutting across demographics. These objections, while rooted in a causal emphasis on emotional immediacy or technological disruption, empirically favored untested disruption over neoclassicism's rigidity—which, through consistent geometric principles, has demonstrably fostered perceptual stability and reduced in built environments, as quantified in perceptual studies where classical facades elicited higher satisfaction ratings (up to 70% in urban settings) compared to asymmetrical modernist counterparts. The enduring public uptake, as in post-1920s revivals like the 1930s Lincoln Memorial's influence on civic design, underscores a in Romantic and Modernist critiques toward prioritizing transient sentiment or hype over of long-term societal cohesion via ordered forms.

Associations with Imperialism and Authoritarianism

Napoleon Bonaparte extensively patronized during his rule from 1799 to 1815, adopting its monumental forms to legitimize his imperial authority by evoking the grandeur of . Structures such as the , initiated in 1806 under architect Jean Chalgrin, featured triumphal arches and columns reminiscent of Roman imperial monuments, symbolizing military conquests and centralized power. This , a variant of neoclassicism, emphasized symmetry, heroic scale, and classical motifs like eagles and laurel wreaths to project an aura of eternal empire, aligning with Napoleon's self-fashioning as a successor to Roman emperors. In the 20th century, was co-opted by authoritarian regimes, notably in under , who designed structures from 1933 onward to embody totalitarian dominance. Speer's (1938–1939) and the Nuremberg Zeppelinfeld stadium (1934–1937) employed stripped neoclassical elements—vast colonnades, pediments, and —drawing from and Roman precedents favored by to convey unyielding strength and . These designs, executed in stone and on a colossal scale, served propaganda purposes, reinforcing the regime's cult of leadership and imperial aspirations for a "Thousand-Year Reich." American imperialism similarly utilized neoclassicism in colonial contexts, such as in the following the 1898 Spanish-American War, to assert dominance and civilizational superiority akin to Roman expansion. During U.S. administration from 1898 to 1946, architects like Ralph Harrington Doane and Juan Arellano constructed neoclassical edifices in , including the Legislative Building (1926, now National Museum) and (1930s), featuring Corinthian columns, domes, and pediments to symbolize orderly governance and permanence. These buildings, part of the Burnham Plan's vision for a "planned ," mirrored the U.S. adoption of classical forms for its own republican institutions while extending imperial control through architectural imposition. Critics have linked these appropriations to neoclassicism's potential for authoritarian symbolism, arguing that its emphasis on and monumentality facilitates by regimes seeking to dwarf the individual. For instance, the style's evocation of imperial —rather than exclusively republican —has been cited as enabling dictators to cloak in timeless legitimacy, as seen in both Napoleonic and Nazi uses. Such associations persist in modern discourse, where neoclassical revivals are sometimes viewed as endorsing rigidity over democratic pluralism. However, neoclassicism's forms remain neutral artifacts, originating in 18th-century Enlightenment admiration for ancient republics' and rational order, not inherent endorsement of . Early adopters, including American founders, drew on Greek democratic and Roman republican models for institutions like the U.S. Capitol (begun 1793), prioritizing balanced proportionality to reflect self-governing realism over despotic excess. Empirical patterns show the style's adaptability: co-opted for empire-building due to its scalable grandeur, yet rooted in principles of clarity and proportion that align with civic functionality, irrespective of the patron's politics. This versatility underscores causal realism in architectural influence—style enables but does not dictate .

Empirical Defenses: Rationality Over Sentimentality

Neoclassical architecture's emphasis on proportional symmetry and durable materials such as stone and masonry has contributed to empirically observed superior longevity relative to many modernist counterparts, particularly those in Brutalist styles reliant on exposed concrete prone to weathering and degradation. Traditional buildings constructed with these classical methods exhibit an average lifecycle of approximately 120 years before requiring major repairs, whereas modernist structures often endure only about 60 years under similar conditions due to material vulnerabilities and design choices prioritizing novelty over endurance. For instance, Brutalist concrete facades, emblematic of post-war modernism, frequently suffer from cracking, spalling, and corrosion within decades, necessitating costly interventions that underscore the causal link between material selection and long-term viability. This disparity validates neoclassicism's adherence to proven construction principles derived from antiquity, where structures like the Parthenon have persisted for over 2,400 years with minimal foundational failure, contrasting with the shorter projected lifespans of contemporary experimental designs averaging around 40 years for certain civic types. Viewer response studies further substantiate neoclassicism's rational foundations by demonstrating that symmetrical compositions, a hallmark of its aesthetic, elicit favorable psychological outcomes associated with order and stability. Research on architectural façades reveals that symmetrical designs significantly enhance prosocial behaviors and positive emotional responses compared to asymmetrical ones, with participants reporting greater feelings of and approachability toward symmetric structures. Human perceptual preferences consistently favor in built environments, linking it to perceptions of beauty, balance, and reduced , as symmetrical patterns align with innate neural processing efficiencies that asymmetrical forms disrupt. These findings counter sentimental critiques by providing quantifiable evidence that neoclassical fosters psychological coherence and , rather than mere subjective appeal, thereby prioritizing causal mechanisms of human response over emotive variability. From a first-principles perspective, neoclassicism's vindication lies in its empirical prioritization of antiquity's observable successes—enduring forms that withstood environmental and societal stresses for —over romanticism's reliance on individualized "" and emotional , which often yields untested irregularities lacking proportional rigor. Ancient classical edifices, emulated in neoclassicism, demonstrate through historical persistence that geometric and structural enable adaptive resilience, as evidenced by the low failure rates of proportionally balanced designs across seismic and climatic challenges. In contrast, romantic derivations, favoring organic and expressive flourishes, introduce variables that compromise predictability and maintenance, aligning less with causal realism of material physics and human scale interaction. This data-driven fidelity to verifiable precedents underscores neoclassicism's , rendering dismissals based on empirically untenable.

Legacy and Modern Revivals

Continuations in Art Deco and Totalitarian Aesthetics

, emerging in the 1920s, incorporated streamlined interpretations of neoclassical motifs, such as symmetrical geometries and columnar proportions, adapted to modern materials like steel and glass for urban skyscrapers. This hybrid retained the restraint and balance of neoclassical forms while emphasizing verticality and machine-age precision, evident in structures like the , completed in 1930, where eagle gargoyles and hubcap motifs evoke classical ornamentation in a geometric, abstracted manner. The style's adaptability demonstrated neoclassicism's empirical continuity, as its proportional systems proved compatible with industrial scalability without sacrificing structural clarity. In totalitarian regimes of the interwar and eras, neoclassical aesthetics were appropriated at monumental scales to symbolize state , preserving core elements like , pediments, and colonnades to project permanence and hierarchy. under employed "Stile Littorio," a rationalist variant with neoclassical features, as in the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana (1938–1943) in Rome's EUR district, featuring arches and repetitive motifs echoing Roman imperial architecture to evoke national continuity. Similarly, Nazi Germany's designed the (1938) and Nuremberg Rally Grounds (1934–1937) using stripped neoclassicism—vast colonnades and friezes in limestone—to convey authoritarian order, drawing on classical geometries for their proven capacity to impose visual discipline over crowds. Soviet Stalinist Empire style (roughly 1930s–1950s) revived neoclassical grandeur in high-rises like the building in (1948–1953), blending Corinthian capitals and entablatures with socialist motifs to legitimize the regime through associations with historical empires, underscoring the forms' versatility in propagating collectivist power without devolving into ornamental excess. Across these applications, the retention of neoclassical restraint—prioritizing proportion over emotive flourish—reflected causal realism in design: geometries that empirically structured space for ideological ends, adapting ancient to 20th-century rather than diluting it through modernist fragmentation.

20th-Century Academic Persistence

Despite the triumph of modernist abstraction in major art capitals during the early , pockets of institutional resistance preserved neoclassical methodologies through structured pedagogy emphasizing empirical observation and technical rigor. The École des Beaux-Arts in , along with affiliated ateliers worldwide, sustained training in classical drafting—requiring students to render antique plaster casts and anatomical models with unerring line and proportion—until widespread curricular overhauls in the 1960s, when modernist influences finally supplanted these practices in favor of conceptual experimentation. Similarly, derivative institutions like the Auckland School of Architecture adhered to Beaux-Arts protocols, including hierarchical critiques and historical precedent studies, from 1927 through 1969, prioritizing measurable skill acquisition over innovative disruption. Academic exhibitions reinforced this holdout by privileging precision akin to Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres's linear exactitude and idealized forms, dismissing much work as deficient in craftsmanship. The Salon des Artistes Français, operational since 1881 under the Société des Artistes Français, awarded prizes through the mid-20th century to paintings and sculptures exhibiting neoclassical clarity and anatomical fidelity, often sidelining for its perceived evasion of verifiable representational standards. This selectivity extended Ingres's legacy as a benchmark for academic orthodoxy, where even modernist admirers later recognized his subtle distortions as rooted in classical discipline rather than whim. Underpinning this persistence was the causal efficacy of tradition-bound transmission: repetitive, observable exercises in from life and casts fostered incremental mastery, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of competence that outlasted ideological shifts toward , as apprentices internalized techniques through direct emulation rather than theoretical abstraction. Such methods, immune to the subjective variances plaguing modernist , ensured neoclassicism's survival in enclaves where artistic value hinged on demonstrable proficiency over novelty.

21st-Century Resurgences: Policy and Cultural Pushback

In December 2020, President issued 13967, "Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture," which established classical and traditional architectural styles as the preferred default for new federal buildings costing over $100 million, emphasizing their ability to inspire civic pride and reflect enduring American heritage over modernist designs deemed less accessible to the public. The order directed the General Services Administration to update commissioning guides accordingly, countering decades of modernist dominance in public architecture by prioritizing empirical public appeal and historical continuity. This policy was rescinded in 2021 but reinstated in substance through 14344 on August 28, 2025, mandating that federal buildings uplift public spaces and ennoble civic identity via classical forms. The movement gained momentum in the 21st century as a direct response to modernist , with architects like leading projects that revive symmetrical, proportioned designs rooted in ancient precedents. Terry, active since the late 20th century, completed post-2000 works such as expansions in University's campus and contributions to the development in Dorset, , where classical facades integrate with to foster community cohesion. By 2021, Terry noted a growing cadre of classical practitioners, reflecting broader institutional support through bodies like the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, which trained over 1,000 professionals annually by the mid-2010s in techniques favoring order and human scale over abstract experimentation. Cultural pushback against modernism's perceived ugliness and rigidity has been empirically substantiated by public surveys favoring neoclassical order and . A 2020 Harris Poll commissioned by the National Civic Art Society found 72% of Americans preferred traditional architecture—characterized by columns, pediments, and —for federal buildings, with support crossing demographics: 75% among whites, 65% among Hispanics, 62% among Blacks, and 70-73% across Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. This preference held irrespective of political affiliation or geography, outperforming modernist glass-and-concrete designs by a nearly 3:1 margin, underscoring a disconnect between architectural tastes and lay empirical valuation of as harmonious proportion. A 2023 study echoed this, with 84% favoring traditional styles for their special aesthetic and respectful urban integration, challenging modernism's functionalist claims amid evidence of higher public satisfaction with symmetrical forms.

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