NEOCLASSICAL STYLE

1762 Antiquities of Athens

1764 History of Ancient Art

1766 Laocoon

-Rediscovery of Classical Art coincides with political movements

1776 American Declaration of Independence

1789 French Revolution

 

 

A New Roman Empire

Napoleon Bonaparte

-after 15 month Reign of Terror, headed by Robespiere, Napoleon installs himself as First Consul

-chosen models were Alexander the Great and especially Julius Caesar

-iterated that he was on a "cultural" and military mission

-Cf. Vendome Column (Fig. 17.7); compare with Trajan’s Column (Fig. 4.9)

-sacked Rome with art experts who knew the value of the spoils

-brought back no human prisoners, but he did bring back artistic treasure prisoners (See Fleming, p. 491)

 

Music, Politics and Art

"Among all the fine arts music is the one which exercises the greatest influence upon the passions and is the one which the legislator should most encourage."

Music as fine art. Art as influencing passions. Political official should encourage.

 

Good music, bad music

-since it has such a power, should the legislator censor music that promotes negative passions?

-Plato: the state has an obligation to censor for the good of the whole

-recall the free baroque vs. academic baroque debate in painting (Fleming, Ch. 15)

Denis Diderot: the function of art is to make "virtue adorable and vice repugnant".

The Musicians

1) Spontini

-La Vestale (The Vestal Virgin)

2) Cristoph Gluck

-influenced by Aristotle’s Poetics: music designed in service to drama and must not become overly ornate

3) Ludwig van Beethoven

-Eroica, "as much a revolution in music as the American and French revolutions were in the fields of political thought and action" (Fleming, p. 505).

-inspired by Napoleon, at least before Beethoven understood Napoleon to have betrayed the cause of revolution.

-Recall Kant ("What is Enlightenment"):

"But be it noted that the public, which has first been brought

under this yoke by their guardians, forces the guardians themselves to remain bound when it is incited to do so by some of the

guardians who are themselves capable of some enlightenment - so harmful is it to implant prejudices, for they later take

vengeance on their cultivators or on their descendants. Thus the public can only slowly attain enlightenment. Perhaps a fall of

personal despotism or of avaricious or tyrannical oppression may be accomplished by revolution, but never a true reform in

ways of thinking. Farther, new prejudices will serve as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking masses."

 

 

Architecture

Place de la Concorde, Paris

La Madeleine

Arches of Triumph

Vendome Column

 

Neoclassical Influence in rest of the world

-Generally, those identified with Napoleon tended to be stylistically Roman

-those identified as anti-Napoleanic tended to be stylistically Greek

Neoclassical specimen Influence Prototype or features Architect

Model of VA capitol

Roman

Maison Carree (Fig. 4.15)

Thomas Jefferson

Rotunda at UV (Fig. 17.8)

Roman

Pantheon

Thomas Jefferson

Treasury Building (Fig. 17.9)

Greek

Ionic colonnade and pediment

Robert Mills

British Museum

Greek

   

Brandenburg Gate

Greek

Athenian Propylaea

  

 

Painting

1) Jacques Louis David

-Oath of the Horatti

-David: art must have grandeur and moral purpose

-recent Herculaneum and Pompeii excavations put Roman Republic in public mind

-David puts realistic artifacts of discoveries in picture

-virtues of courage, patriotism, loyalty over womanly love, sorrow, despair

-Oath was inaugural political art; becomes widely used in political revolution

-Story (Plutarch and Pliny):

-Romans vs. Albans

-Three representatives of each fight instead of armies

-Three Horatius brothers (Romans) vs. three Curatius brothers (Albans)

 

-Lictors Bringing Back to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons

-Madame Recamier

 

  1. Angelica Kauffmann

    2. -Cornelia Pointing to Her Children as Treasures (1785; Fig. 17.1)

     

    Academically-minded painters

    3) Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

    -Apotheosis of Homer
  2. Benjamin West

-history painter for English king

-studied in Rome

-The Death of General Wolfe

-episode of defeat of French in French and Indian War

 

Sculpture

Antonio Canova

-Venus Victorious

-Subject matter

 

 

-Napoleon

 

Why was neoclassical sculpture more restrained than painting? (Fleming, p. 502)

 

 

The Declaration of Independence: 7/1776

-It sometimes is necessary for one people to dissolve government (derived from Locke), but we’ll tell you why!

-Unalienable Rights

-It is a Right and a Duty to protect them

 

 

The Progression towards Freedom?

Sociopolitical

Feudalism® Renaissance® Reformation ® Rights of Individual

Rational

Medievalism ® scholasticism ® humanism® nominalism ® scientific revolution ® Enlightenment ® Practical consequences: revolution

Economic

Rulers, landed aristocracy and Church ® merchants ("new money") ® middle class.

 

Ideas

Archeological Idea

The Laocoon Group (Fig 3.18)

-exhibition of Hellenistic emotionalism

-its formal beauty emulated by Michelangelo (Cf. Fig 10.6)

-Giovanni Bologna Rape of the Sabine Women 1583 (Cf. 12.29)

 

Freedom, Order and Authority (esp. Rome), Heroism, military virtue

 

-But much of Rome and Greece were not free, citizens, well to do economically.

-Napoleon’s period has similar ambiguity

-freedom of individual vs. need for authority