One of the earliest causes for the rise of Neoclassicism is the reaction by many Enlightenment thinkers to Rococo and Baroque art. The Baroque was too busy and ornamental for many people and once it evolved into Rococo it had become less of a style and more of a display of extravagance. Rococo had even gone so far as to include farce and jokes into its style. The pettiness of these movements had created a backlash and these thinkers and art critics welcomed the harsher and more ordered Neoclassical style as they began to swing the art pendulum in the opposite direction.
One of the primary causes in the rise of Neoclassicism in the mid-eighteenth century was the expansion of what was previously called a classical education. By 1750 Italian tourism was already a full blown industry, with guides and guidebooks circulating throughout Europe. As a part of any young man’s education, he now had to make the artistic tour of Italy, especially Florence, Rome, and Naples. This was not just a quick visit to a couple museums; rather, it was a lengthy, often times more than a year, and in-depth study of the rich trove of art that these cities had to offer. It was supplemented with classes and lectures at the museums and time taken after these to sketch or paint these precious works to take home. The proliferation of these sketches would compound and any aspiring artist was also then required to study these works. The increased influence and awareness of Greek and Roman art in the studies of the developing artists would soon begin to show in their designs.
One of the most significant reasons that a renewed interest in Italy has arisen was the recently found sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The excavation of these sites revealed massive amounts of new information about the Roman’s everyday life, and it astonished those who read about or visited these sites. They also found a large number of new sculptures and wall paintings, whetting the appetite of a steadily increasing number of tourists for this type of art. The study of Roman and Greek art had been a staple throughout European civilization, but with the discovery of these new sites and the enormous amount of information they provided, combined with the new requirement of Italian studies in a newly evolved and more complete Enlightenment age education was one of the key developments in the rising interest of classical art and, consequently, the rise of its practice in eighteenth century art and architecture.
When these artists and architects who had trained in Rome under these classical influences began to practice their work they were obviously going to integrate these influences into their own works. When this generation of new, classically trained artists came into contact with the rulers of mid eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and their large, Enlightened budgets, the public could only sit back and enjoy the triumphal arches, columns, and forums rise up in various locations throughout their cities. These could be seen in England, Germany, Italy, and, most notably, France. The Enlightened Absolutism of Louis XV and Louis XVI, followed by the rule of Napoleon made France, and especially Paris and Versailles, the country richest in Neoclassical architecture. From the Versailles Opera House to the salt works at Arc-et-Senans to the Arc d’Triomphe the central core of France was alive with Neoclassicism. However, all of these were possible only through the inspirations and classical influences of these previously trained artists as well as through the grand budgets of the Louis and Napoleon.
France was not the only country sending young men to Rome. England also had a great number of young men returning from Italy beginning in the 1740’s. Many Neoclassical works were also erected in England at this time also, many of them built by Robert Adam. Adam had a distinctive style and managed to preserve the classical ideals while managing to create some sense of originality in his designs. From the 1750s until the 1790s the movement of Neoclassicism in England was popularly called the “Age of Adam.” This was the beginning of the first major push in Neoclassical architecture, developed further in France by LeDoux and Boullèe.
Although indirect at points, the Enlightenment clearly had a major impact on the reformation of classical ideal in art and architecture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The balance, contrast, and solidarity in Jaques-Louis David’s Oath of the Horatii or the sense of order and feeling in Raft of the Medusa could only have been present if the thinkers of the age had raised the bar on education and advanced science to where it was possible to excavate the entire buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum as well as have enough insight to derive all the information from these finds. It also could not have been possible without the violent reaction to the pettiness of the preceding Baroque and Rococo forms.
Neoclassicism was the dominant art form through a turbulent period in history. It influenced and weathered several national revolutions and international wars and because of its strength and balance, perhaps the era was made all the stronger because of the art and architecture that was the backdrop for the action of the age.
Bibliography
Irwin, David. Neoclassicism. London, Phaidon, 1997.
Watkin, David. German Architecture and the Classical Ideal. Cambridge, MIT Press 1987.
Rosenblum and Janson. 19th Century Art. New York, Abrams, 1984.
Sculpture, 1760-1840.” Eighteenth-Century Studies Vol. 34 (2000): 135
Hutton, J. “Neoclassicism.” CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. Vol. 35 (1998): 1843
http://mistral.culture.fr/lumiere/documents/files/cadre_historique.html
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=neoclassicism