Neoclassicism: How Ancient Greece and Rome Shaped Modern Art and Politics

Enlightenment rumblings notwithstanding, the 18th century, or at least the 18th century up until 1789, the onset of the French Revolution, was the great age of the aristocracy, and one of the delights of life for an aristocratic young man was taking an extended grand tour of Europe, especially Italy. As these wealthy young Europeans flooded into Italy, they, like all tourists, hunted for souvenirs to bring home. This busy and jumbled painting was commissioned by a young French nobleman who was shown circled in red, looking at a guidebook, maybe with some of his traveling buddies. I trust you recognize the works I've circled in blue, yellow, and green. Starting in 1748, the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples began sponsoring excavations of the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The amazing archaeological finds at these sites, in turn, sparked a revival of interest in classical art, architecture, history, and literature. Not unlike the classical revival of the Renaissance, this movement came to be known as neoclassicism. Here is a modern photo that still gives you a sense of why visitors found these ruins so compelling. Do you remember Pompeian wall paintings? These were uncovered during the excavations I've just mentioned, and they set off a wave of neoclassical imitation. Here's another Pompeian fresco, which I've set against one of our required neoclassical works by David. Note the interplay of architectural features and narrative. There was a political connection as well. Stay tuned. I'll return to neoclassical painting in just a few minutes, but arguably the most important classical revival came not in painting, but in architecture, and no Roman building was more important than our old friend the Pantheon. But, before we get to our Pantheon-inspired required work, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, we need to look at the architect and the building that really sparked the neoclassical revival in architecture. It's not a required work, but it will be on your unit test. This is Palladio's famous Villa Rotunda. Note the date, we are back in the high renaissance, and we're back in Venice, or at least the countryside near Venice. Andrea Palladio is considered by many art historians to be the most influential individual in the history of architecture, and this country villa is probably his most famous building, even if it didn't make the list. Palladio's architectural style employed symmetry, mathematical perspective, and many elements of classical temple architecture, such as a pediment, an entablature, a dome, and even sculptures on the roof, a shout out to the Etruscans. Palladian designs proved especially popular in England and in the new American colonies, and then the new Republic of the United States. It's easy enough to see the appeal of this elegance to aristocrats, especially an English aristocracy that didn't tend to go for Baroque with the same enthusiasm as French aristocrats, but why do you think this would appeal in America? The leaders of the new nation, when designing their own homes and even more their public buildings, sought out an architecture that echoed the traditions of the Roman Republic, which was much admired by our founders, while also conveying the seriousness and staying power of the American governmental experiment. So, here is the rotunda that Thomas Jefferson designed for the University of Virginia, and here is the U.S. Capitol. Note that like the Villa Rotunda, it includes a dome rising above a temple facade with a pediment and Corinthian columns. Also like Villa Rotunda, the Capitol was set on a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside Capitol Hill. In the case of Washington, D.C., this meant the surrounding Malarial River Swamp. And finally, we get to our required work of neoclassical architecture, the home that Thomas Jefferson designed and built for himself on a hill, not like most plantation homes by a river. Monticello is actually Italian for Little Hill, another shout out to Palladio and to Italy. Jefferson was a self-taught architect, and his main textbook was, as you might have guessed, Palladio's book on architecture. Here we see a rough sketch of the house he would begin building in 1768. So, you've seen the final product. What's missing? There's no dome, yet. In 1784, Jefferson left Virginia for Paris, where he served as the new United States Minister to France. During that time, he avidly studied European culture. He visited Roman ruins in the south of France, including the Maison Carrée, probably the best-preserved Roman temple. He sent home books, seeds and plants, statues and architectural drawings, and notebooks filled with his ideas. When Jefferson returned to the United States in 1789, he embarked on a major remodeling that included a dome-shaped room on the third floor, skylights, and round windows. The house was finally completed in 1809, by the way, building it pretty much bankrupted Jefferson, and when Jefferson died, his daughter was forced to sell the house to pay his debts. Here's the required College Board image of the floor plan, and here on the left is, I think, a more helpful, labeled version. I've stuck the Villa Rotunda plan in the bottom right by way of comparison. Note that Jefferson's building is not designed around a circular room, and it is not perfectly symmetrical. Still, like the Villa Rotunda, Monticello's plan is geometric, rational, and orderly in the neoclassical style. Neoclassical sculpture likewise harkened back to classical times, and especially the tradition of the Veristic Roman Portrait bust. Remember, those were designed to portray subjects as embodiments of age, wisdom, and public virtue, even to the point of exaggerating their age. Do you remember the required Roman work on the upper right? The leading neoclassical portrait sculptor was the Frenchman Jean-Antoine Houdon, so it's not surprising that when the Virginia Legislature wanted to commission a sculpture of George Washington for their state capitol, they turned to Houdon. In fact, it was Jefferson, again returned from France, who recommended Houdon and who commissioned the work. The Khan Academy homework covered this work really well, but I've noted a few important points on this slide. Fascists got a bad name when Mussolini and then Hitler adopted them as a symbol of fascism, but in fact they stood for the idea that even thin rods, bound together, became strong in unity. An appropriate image for the 13 states of the new republic, as well as the citizens of the Roman Republic. George Washington quite consciously modeled himself on the Roman general Cincinnatus, who, after winning a major victory for Rome, refused to stay on as a dictator. Instead, he returned home to his farm. I'd just note that Cincinnatus also opposed the efforts to give more political power to plebeians or non-noble Romans, so maybe he wasn't the ideal democratic model. Still, it was a good story, and it has a fascinating basis in fact. I used to tell my AP government students that one of the most important events in U.S. history was the Newburgh Conspiracy. Generally, they would stare at me, blankly, since they hadn't usually studied the Newburgh Conspiracy in AP U.S. history, and there's a good reason they didn't. It's a conspiracy that totally flopped. During the unruly days of the Articles of Confederation, a group of army officers approached George Washington and asked him to accept the role of dictator. Washington refused. Instead, he invited a few leading citizens to a dinner party at his home, Mount Vernon, and he threw out the suggestion that maybe the U.S. needed a new and better constitution. Washington went on to preside over the Constitutional Convention and, of course, to serve as the United States' first president. Sometimes the most important events in history I think we can all agree that Washington was wise to ask Houdon to sculpt him in contemporary dress, not, as Houdon originally planned, in classical dress. Congress commissioned this appalling sculpture for the centennial of Washington's birth. It's based on a sculpture of Zeus, and essentially it portrays the, we now know, aging pot-bellied Washington as a buff Greek god. The statue proved enormously unpopular, which shows that Americans do sometimes display good taste. But you could all identify this as neoclassical as well as truly tasteless, right? Back at last to neoclassical painting. You've already seen this painting, David's Death of Socrates, and again, it's not a required work. In my last lecture, I talked about how neoclassical painting reflected the era's fascination with Ancient Greece and even more with Ancient Rome. Note too that neoclassical paintings represented a return to an emphasis on clear lines, as opposed to the blurred contours and exuberant colors of Baroque painters like Rubens. But above all, neoclassical art was famous for its moral and political content. The revolt against the aristocratic excess captured in Rococo art and a call for a return to Republican civic virtues. In this painting by one of the century's leading women painters, we see the mother of a group of sons who would grow up to lead a democratic revolt against Rome's aristocrats. The painting captures a famous encounter which would have been very familiar to the 18th century's classically educated aristocracy and upper middle class. Cornelia, a wife of a Roman patrician, was walking down the street with her children. They came across a woman with a jewelry box, who asked Cornelia, why aren't you wearing any bling? Cornelia responded by gesturing to her children, they are my jewels. Cornelia then told the woman that it was her job to raise her boys to be great men like their father. So here we have just the opposite of the powdered, poof, bejeweled, and adulterous French aristocratic women who ran Parisian salons and showed up in Rococo art. This neoclassical emphasis on self-sacrifice and civic virtue pervades neoclassical painting, and of course Shades of Rousseau. This was a gal who knew her place, home and hearth all the way. Here we have what is probably the most famous neoclassical painting, David's Oath of the Horatii, and our next required work. The Horatii were three brothers who vowed to settle a dispute between two cities, one of the Rome, by engaging in combat with three citizens of the rival city. Note the manly, determined Roman brothers. They are being offered swords by their father, and note the contrast with their weepy mother and sisters. So how does the artist use line to reinforce this message? The men are all straight lines and sharp angles. The women are soft and curved. Remember, these are the followers of Rousseau who kicked women out of the French academy of painting. I'm going to let my favorite art history commentator, Simon Schama, talk about this painting and about David. Schama wrote what many consider to be the best historical analysis of the French Revolution. And yes, I have read it all 879 pages. This may confirm suspicions you already had about my sanity. Anyway, the entire video up on canvas is excellent and a dramatic introduction to this important event in history. Context I don't know how much time you have left. I'm hoping you have time for this three-minute clip about the start of the French Revolution. I'll close here. In my next lecture, we'll see how idealism gave birth to bloodshed and then to warfare. And with that dark turn of history, we will also enter a new art historical period, Romanticism.