Neoclassicism

In 1738 excavators began digging at Herculaneum, and in 1748 at Pompeii, the Roman towns buried by Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Wall paintings, furniture and whole streets came to light. At the same time, the German scholar Johann Joachim Winckelmann praised Greek art for its "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur" (1755). A new taste for the ancient world, more exact than the Renaissance's (see Roman Arches, Concrete and Domes), took hold across Europe and America: Neoclassicism (about 1760 to 1830).

Neoclassical painters rejected the Rococo's pastels and playful curves as frivolous. They wanted clear outlines, calm, balanced compositions, sober color, and stories of Roman virtue: duty, sacrifice and patriotism.

Looking closely: The Oath of the Horatii

Describe. In a plain Roman hall, three brothers stretch out their arms to swear an oath on three swords their father holds up. At the right, the women of the family slump in grief. The story, from the Roman historian Livy, tells of three brothers chosen to fight for Rome. Analyze. Three arches behind divide the scene into three groups: brothers, father, women. The men are drawn with hard, straight lines and stiff, tense poses; the women's curved, drooping forms answer them. The light is clear, the colors few, the space shallow, like a stage or a relief carving. Interpret. Duty to the state outweighs family feeling. David painted it in Rome, signed it in 1784, and showed it at the Paris Salon of 1785, where it was a sensation.

David later served Napoleon. In Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1801) the young general rides a rearing horse with a billowing cloak, and the rocks bear the names of Hannibal and Charlemagne, earlier conquerors who crossed the Alps. In fact he crossed on a mule, in fair weather. David painted the heroic image his patron wanted.