neoclassical period: history and style

NEOCLASSICAL PERIOD: HISTORY AND STYLE
>>> The Neoclassical period commenced in the year 1750. It refers to the movement in art in trying it to revive classical ideas like balance and simplicity.
THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PERIOD IN ITS CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
1. The American Declaration of Independence (1776)
2. The Fall of the Bastille (1789)
3. The Execution of Louis XVI (1793)
4. The publication of the “Lyrical Ballads” of Wordsworth and Coleridge (1798)
>>> Neoclassical designers work in simple forms and colors, avoiding all unnecessary complications. This applies to architecture, painting, and sculpture, so that the arts became formally austere and rigid, rejecting the bright colors and movement of the previous Roccoco and Baroque styles.
>>>Sculpture was probably the most expressive neoclassical artistic medium. Art in the Neoclassical period celebrated the masterpiece Cupid and Psyche (1787-1793) by Antonio Canova in Louvre, Paris.
Cupid and Psyche Antonio Canova
>>> In painting, Jacques-Louis David’s work, The Oath of Horatiti (1784-1785), exhibits his severe and uncompromising style.

>>> There are other well-known painters during the neoclassical period: Jean August Dominique Ingres who painted Antiochus and Stratonice in 1834(left side) and Nicolas Poussin who painted The Death of Germanicus in 1627 (right side).

ROMANTIC PERIOD
>>> The romantic period took place during the early mid-19th century.
THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PERIOD IN ITS CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
1. The proclamation of Napoleon as emperor (1804)
2. The invention of the first working steam engine (1814)
3. The French revolution ( 1848)
4. The recognition of Beethoven for his composition, Symphony 9.
>>> Romanticism is a movement that emphasized imagination and emotion over reason and order.
>>> The romantic style in fine arts and literature stressed passion, imagination, and intuition, rather than logic or reason. Artists used their works to highlight national identity. As demonstrated in the works of the following:
1. Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (1746-1828): in his work,
The Executions of the Third of May, 1808 (1814), depicted the atrocities of the French invasion of Spain during the time of Napoleon Bonaparte.

2. A French artist Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863): Liberty Leading the People (1830) referred to the uprising that led to the abdication of Charles X as King of France.

3. Theodore Gericault (1791-1824): Mad Woman with a Mania of Envy , his masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa.

>>>Romantic theme and style also focus on nature in relation to humanity or man’s “longing to return to nature”. Among these artists are:
1. Caspar David Friedrich: in his Moonrise Over the Sea, he merged the human form with the mood of nature.
2. John Constable: his works are Dedham Vale, Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Garden, The Hay in Wain, Stonehenge.
3. Joseph Mallord William Turner: his oil in canvas masterpiece, The Burning of the Houses of Parliament (1835).