Neoclassical Visual Arts

Painting

• David
  • Classical inspired subjects in heroic settings
  • Photographic clarity
  • Use of direct light as seen in strongly modeled forms
    • Oath of the Horatii
      • Heroic Roman legend of sacrifice and duty to Rome
      • An allegory to revolutionary France
      • The Three Estates
      • The Tennis Court Oath
    • Lictors Bringing Back to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons
  • Same style also utilize contemporary dress
  • Bonaparte Crossing the Alps

Sculpture and Architecture

• Percier and Fontaine state commissions
  • Vendome Column
    • Continuous narrative relief tells of Napoleon's campaign
    • Culminates with the battle of Austerlitz
  • Arc de Triomphe
  • The Roman models of inspiration
    • Trajan's Column - Commemorated Emperor Trajan's victory over the Dacian tribes during the later Roman Empire
  • Arch of Titus
• Vignon
  • La Madeleine
  • From Christian cathedral (Louis XVI) to Temple of Reason (Napoleon)
  • Based on Roman pagan temples
• Thomas Jefferson
  • Rotunda at UV
    • Roman dome vaulting
    • Roman Corinthian orders
    • Rejects Roman polychrome marble in favor of Virginian brick
  • The Roman model - The Pantheon
• Canova
  • An Italian Neoclassic sculpture brought to France to memorialize the Napoleon's family
  • Classical ideal forms
  • The Canova workshop
    • Venus Victorious - Pauline Bonaparte (Napoleon's sister) as Venus
    • Napoleon
      • Classical nude
      • Napoleon as Caesar
      • Staff of authority
      • Drape of the Imperator
• Greenough
  • An American Neoclassical sculptor commissioned to create the monument to the first president
  • George Washington
  • The problems…
    • Washington as Zeus
    • The Classical nude

More extensive and full-sized art works may be seen in the Art Gallery

Humanities Resource of Mark Hunter