Neoclassical architecture
The
neoclassical movement that produced
Neoclassical architecture began in the mid-
18th century, as a reaction against both the surviving
Baroque and
Rococo styles, and as a desire to return to the perceived "purity" of the arts of
Rome, the more vague perception ("ideal") of
Ancient Greek arts (where almost no Western artist had actually been) and, to a lesser extent, 16th century
Renaissance Classicism.
There is an anti-Rococo strain that can be detected in some European
architecture of the earlier 18th century, most vividly represented in the
Palladian architecture of Georgian
Britain and
Ireland, but also recognizable in a classicizing vein of Late Baroque architecture in Paris (
Perrault's east range of the
Louvre), in
Berlin, and even in Rome, in
Alessandro Galilei's facade for
S. Giovanni in Laterano. It is a robust architecture of self-restraint, academically selective now of "the best" Roman models.
Neoclassicism first gained influence in
Paris, through a generation of French art students trained at the French Academy in Rome and influenced by the presence of
Charles-Louis Clérisseau and the writings of
Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and in
London, through the examples of Paris-trained Sir
William Chambers and
James "Athenian" Stuart. It was quickly adopted by progressive circles in
Sweden as well. In Paris, many of the first generation of neoclassical architects received training in the classic French tradition through a series of exhaustive and practical lectures that was offered for decades by
Jacques-François Blondel.
At first, in the 1760s and 70s, classicizing decor was grafted onto familiar European forms, as in
Gatchina's interiors for Catherine II's lover
Count Orlov, designed by an Italian architect with a team of Italian
stuccadori (
stucco workers). A second neoclassic wave, more severe, more studied (through the medium of engravings) and more consciously archaeological, is associated with the height of the
Napoleonic Empire. In France, the first phase of neoclassicism is expressed in the "Louis XVI style" of architects like
Ange-Jacques Gabriel (
Petit Trianon, 1762–68); the second phase, in the styles we call "Directoire" or "Empire", might be characterized by
Jean Chalgrin's severe astylar
Arc de Triomphe (designed in 1806). In England the two phases might be characterized first by the structures of
Robert Adam, the second by those of Sir
John Soane.
Spanish Neoclassicism counted with the figure of
Juan de Villanueva, who adapted
Burke's achievements about the sublime and the beauty to the requirements of Spanish clime and history. He built the
Prado Museum, that combined three programs- an academy, an auditorium and a museum- in one building with three separated entrances. This was part of the ambitious program of
Charles III, who intended to make Madrid the Capital of Art and Science. Very close to the museum, Villanueva built the Astronomical Observatory. He also designed several summer houses for the kings in
El Escorial and
Aranjuez and reconstructed the Major Square of
Madrid, among other important works. Villanuevas´ pupils expanded the Neoclassical style in Spain.
Italy clung to Rococo until the Napoleonic regimes brought the new archaeological classicism, which was embraced as a political statement by young, progressive, urban Italians with republican leanings.
The center of
Polish classicism was
Warsaw under the rule of the last
Polish king
Stanisław August Poniatowski. The best known architects and artists, who worked in
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were
Dominik Merlini,
Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer,
Szymon Bogumił Zug,
Jakub Kubicki,
Antonio Corazzi,
Efraim Szreger,
Christian Piotr Aigner,
Wawrzyniec Gucewicz and
Bertel Thorvaldsen.
Neoclassical architecture was exemplified in
Karl Friedrich Schinkel's buildings, especially the
Old Museum in Berlin, Sir
John Soane's Bank of England in London and the newly-built "
capitol" in
Washington, DC. The Scots architect
Charles Cameron created palatial Italianate interiors for the German-born
Catherine II the Great in Russian St. Petersburg: the style was international.
Indoors, neoclassicism made a discovery of the genuine Roman interior, inspired by the rediscoveries at
Pompeii and
Herculaneum, which had started in the late
1740s, but only achieved a wide audience in the
1760s, with the first luxurious volumes of tightly-controlled distribution of
Le Antichità di Ercolano. The antiquities of Herculaneum showed that even the most classicizing interiors of the
Baroque, or the most "Roman" rooms of
William Kent were based on
basilica and
temple exterior architecture, turned outside in:
pedimented window frames turned into
gilded mirrors, fireplaces topped with temple fronts, now all looking quite bombastic and absurd. The new interiors sought to recreate an authentically Roman and genuinely
interior vocabulary, employing flatter, lighter motifs, sculpted in low
frieze-like relief or painted in monotones
en camaïeu ("like cameos"), isolated medallions or vases or busts or
bucrania or other motifs, suspended on swags of laurel or ribbon, with slender arabesques against backgrounds, perhaps, of "Pompeiian red" or pale tints, or stone colors. The style in France was initially a Parisian style, the "goût Grèc" ("Greek style") not a court style. Only when the young king acceded to the throne in
1771 did
Marie Antoinette, his fashion-loving Queen, bring the "
Louis XVI" style to court.
From about
1800 a fresh influx of Greek architectural examples, seen through the medium of etchings and engravings, gave a new impetus to neoclassicism that is called the
Greek Revival. Neoclassicism continued to be a major force in
academic art through the
19th century and beyond— a constant antithesis to
Romanticism or
Gothic revivals— although from the late
19th century on it had often been considered anti-modern, or even reactionary, in influential critical circles. By the mid-19th century, several European cities - notably
St Petersburg and
Munich - were transformed into veritable museums of Neoclassical architecture.
In American architecture, neoclassicism was one expression of the
American Renaissance movement,
ca 1890-
1917; its last manifestation was in
Beaux-Arts architecture, and its very last, large public projects were the
Lincoln Memorial (highly criticised at the time), the
National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the
American Museum of Natural History's Roosevelt Memorial. These were
white elephants as they were built. In the British Raj, Sir
Edwin Lutyens' monumental city planning for
New Delhi marks the glorious sunset of neoclassicism.
*
Stalinist architecture*Hakan Groth.
Neoclassicism in the North*Hugh Honour,
Neoclassicism*David Irwin,
Neoclassicism (in series Art and Ideas) (Phaidon, paperback 1997
*Stanislaw Lorentz.
Neoclassicism in Poland (Series History of art in Poland)
*Thomas McCormick, 1991.
Charles-Louis Clérisseau and the Genesis of Neoclassicism (Architectural History Foundation)
*Mario Praz.
On Neoclassicism*
Neo-Classical America
