NEO-CLASSICISM MAPEH 9 powerpoint presentation

topic about neo-classicism

1. NEO-CLASSICISM CATCH UP FRIDAYS

2. Neoclassical art , a widespread and influential movement in painting and the other  visual arts  that began in the 1760s, reached its height in the 1780s and ’90s, and lasted until the 1840s and ’50s. In painting it generally took the form of an emphasis on  austere  linear design in the depiction of Classical themes and subject matter, using archaeologically correct settings and clothing. Neoclassicism in the arts is an  aesthetic  attitude based on the art of  Greece  and  Rome  in antiquity, which  invokes  harmony, clarity, restraint, universality, and idealism. In the  context  of the tradition,  Classicism  refers either to the art produced in antiquity or to later art inspired by that of antiquity, while Neoclassicism always refers to the art produced later but inspired by antiquity. Classicizing artists tend to prefer somewhat more specific qualities, which include line over colour , straight lines over curves, frontality and closed  compositions  over diagonal compositions into deep space, and the general over the particular.

3. Neoclassicism arose partly as a reaction against the sensuous and frivolously decorative  Rococo style  that had dominated European art from the 1720s on. But an even more profound stimulus was the new and more scientific interest in  Classical antiquity  that arose in the 18th century. Neoclassicism was given great  impetus  by new  archaeological  discoveries, particularly the exploration and excavation of the buried Roman cities of  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii  (the excavations of which began in 1738 and 1748, respectively). And, from the second decade of the 18th century on, a number of influential publications by  Bernard de Montfaucon ,  Giovanni Battista Piranesi , the  comte de Caylus , and antiquarian Robert Wood provided engraved views of Roman monuments and other antiquities and further quickened interest in the Classical past.

4. The new understanding  distilled  from these discoveries and publications in turn enabled European scholars for the first time to discern separate and distinct chronological periods in Greco-Roman art, and this new sense of a plurality of ancient styles replaced the older, unqualified veneration of Roman art and encouraged a dawning interest in purely Greek antiquities. The German scholar  Johann Joachim Winckelmann ’s writings and sophisticated theorizings were especially influential in this regard. Winckelmann saw in Greek sculpture “a noble simplicity and quiet grandeur” and called for artists to imitate Greek art. He claimed that in doing so such artists would obtain idealized depictions of natural forms that had been stripped of all transitory and individualistic aspects, and their images would thus attain a universal and archetypal significance.

5. GROUP READING DIVIDE THE CLASS INTO 3 GROUPS AND LET THEM READ THE FOLLOWING TOPICS ASSIGNED TO THEM

6. GROUP 1

7. PAINTINGS

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

9. SCULPTURE

10. 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. 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. 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 . 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.