neoclassicism

neoclassicism:

see classicismclassicism,
a term that, when applied generally, means clearness, elegance, symmetry, and repose produced by attention to traditional forms. It is sometimes synonymous with excellence or artistic quality of high distinction.
..... Click the link for more information. .

Neoclassicism

a term used in Soviet art criticism and, to some extent, literary criticism to designate various artistic phenomena of the late 19th and the 20th century. These phenomena differ in social orientation and ideological content, but they are all characterized by application of ancient Greek and Roman, Renaissance, and classicist traditions (in music, baroque elements as well).

The term “neoclassicism” is widely used, primarily in art criticism abroad, to designate classicism in the architecture and representational arts roughly from 1750 to 1830, as distinguished from the classicism of the 17th and early 18th centuries.

Neoclassicism arose as a systematic return to the art of the past. There was a desire to contrast certain “eternal” aesthetic values with a turbulent and contradictory reality: to juxtapose strict, stately forms and ideal images (extratemporal and “purified” of everything concretely historical) with the intellectual and formal patterns of artistic movements that were obsessed with the search for a direct correspondence with reality. In this sense, neoclassicism displays quite a few similarities with neoromanticism, although at times it is also the antithesis of the latter.

The further development and creative understanding of classical traditions seem to reveal the historical continuity of the artistic process. However, the mechanical application of classical formal devices and the tendentious, affected interpolation of classical motifs (often officially encouraged in 20th-century art) have led to the production of schematic, lifeless, or pseudo-sublime pompous works.

In architecture, neoclassical currents, associated mainly with the traditions of classicism, achieved their greatest popularity in three distinct periods. The first began circa 1910 and, in a number of countries, continued until the mid-1920’s; the second embraced primarily the 1930’s; and the third began in the late 1950’s.

In the first period, the organizational logic and laconicism of classical form were championed as a counterbalance to the caprices of form and excesses of decoration found in the architecture of eclecticism and in art nouveau. In a number of countries, the neoclassicism of this period used elements of art nouveau yet maintained definite rationalistic tendencies (for example, the work of such architects as A. Perret and T. Garnier in France, P. Behrens in Germany, O. Wagner and A. Loos in Austria, and E. G. Apslund in Sweden).

In Russian architecture of the second decade of the 20th century, neoclassicism acquired a more retrospective quality and was dominated by a desire to affirm the basic principles of classical architecture (for example, works by I. A. Fomin, I. V. Zholtovskii, and V. A. Shchuko). During the same years, the representatives of Russian art nouveau also turned to the stylization of classical motifs (F. O. Shekhtel’, F. I. Lidval’).

In the United States and Great Britain from 1910 to 1930, neoclassicism developed primarily in official architecture. The structures were imposing and emphatically monumental (for example, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., 1914–22, designed by H. Bacon).

In the 1930’s, elements of neoclassicism were widely applied in Italian and German architecture to create exaggeratedly monumental structures, which were overwhelming to man and served to propagate fascist ideology (for example, the University Campus in Rome, 1930–35, designed by M. Piacentini; the House of Art in Munich, 1933–37, designed by P. L. Troost: and the Reichs Chancellery in Berlin, 1938, designed by A. Speer, destroyed 1945). In these structures, neoclassicism was reduced to strictly symmetrical, sterile, oversimplified forms.

Beginning in the late 1950’s, neoclassicism developed in a new direction, primarily in the architecture of the United States (“1960’s neoclassicism”). The movement was encouraged by an official building program under which about 50 structures housing American diplomats were constructed in various countries according to specific stylistic guidelines. Various classical compositional devices were combined with forms dictated by modern methods of construction. Inexpensive materials were used to imitate more costly ones, and elements associated with local architectural traditions were frequently incorporated into structures built outside the United States. Examples include the US embassies in New Delhi (1958, designed by E. Stone), London (1960, designed by E. Saarinen), and Athens (1957–61, designed by W. Gropius). The most significant neoclassical project in the official and commercial architecture of the United States is Lincoln Center in New York City (1960’s, designed by P. Johnson, W. Harrison, M. Abramovitz, and E. Saarinen). Its buildings form a symmetrical border around a rectangular square.

The principles of neoclassicism were reflected to some degree in Soviet architecture of the late 1930’s through the early 1950’s.

In the representational arts, the term “neoclassicism” is much broader than in architecture and is applied to more heterogeneous artistic currents. In this area, there is fuller expression of the desire to juxtapose the internal harmony of classical images with the tragic disharmony of modern life and with the intellectual and stylistic ferment in art.

Some anticipations of neoclassicism were evident in the work of the pre-Raphaelites (mid-19th century onward). However, it first became possible to speak of neoclassicism as a relatively integral phenomenon in connection with neo-idealism, which took final shape in Germany toward the end of the 1870’s. Polemicizing against academic eclecticism, naturalism, and realism and espousing “eternal” ideals of beauty, such neo-idealists as the painters A. Feuerbach and H. von Marées and the sculptor A. von Hildebrand strove to revive the monumentality and palpable plasticity of classical art (although this was often realized only in abstract form). In aesthetics, this striving was justified in the works of K. Fiedler, who saw the task of art as the overcoming of the “chaos” of reality and regarded form-creation as the expression of the artist’s particular “form of vision.”

Neoclassicism became widespread in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a reaction against impressionism. It combined (1) certain late academic currents; (2) a certain adherence to the principles of ancient Greek and Roman art (not so much of the classical as of the archaic period) and, to a lesser degree, of Renaissance art (more elements from the Early Renaissance than from the High Renaissance) and 17th- and 18th-century classicism; and (3) some stylistic tendencies of art nouveau.

The term “neoclassicism” is applicable in varying degrees to the work or to certain aspects of the work of a number of sculptors and painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The sculptors included A. Maillol and E. A. Bourdelle in France; A. G. Vigelan in Norway; C. Milles in Sweden; K. Nielsen in Denmark; I. Mestrović in Yugoslavia; F. Messina in Italy; and S. T. Konenkov, A. T. Matveev, and S. D. Merkurov in Russia. Among the painters were F. Hodler in Switzerland; P. Puvis de Chavannes and M. Denis in France; and L. S. Bakst, V. A. Serov, A. E. Iakovlev, V. I. Shukhaev, and K. S. Petrov-Vodkin in Russia.

A number of artistic movements exhibiting a kinship to neoclassicism arose in the 1920’s and 1930’s as a reaction against expressionism, futurism, and cubism. Neue Sachlichkeit, a movement in German art that was a reaction against expressionism and whose members included A. Kanoldt, influenced regional art in the United States during the 1930’s (G. Wood and others). Another such movement was Italian metaphysical painting, which underwent further development in the 1920’s (represented by G. de Chirico, F. Casorati, and others). In France, P. Picasso’s “neo-Ingresism” was distinguished from other movements by its humanistic and idyllic tone and its strong influence on neoclassicism in other European schools of art.

Just as in architecture, the official art of fascist regimes used the arsenal of artistic resources of neoclassicism to create pseudomonumental, lifelessly cold or pompous images embodying the cult of state power and the “superman hero” (the painters A. Funi and M. Sironi in Italy; the sculptor A. Breker in Germany).

In literature, the term “neoclassicism” is strictly applied in Soviet scholarship to designate trends relatively limited in scope (from the early 1890’s to 1905) that were aesthetically similar to neoclassical representational art around the turn of the 20th century (the “Roman” school in France, headed by C. Maurras and J. Moréas; the work of P. Ernst, W. Scholz, and S. Lublinski in Germany). Neoclassical writers differing in sociopolitical aims are united by similar principles of aesthetics and poetics: a negative reaction to naturalism (with its democratic, earthbound hero, determined by environment and nature) and to French symbolism and German neoromanticism (with their pessimism, enfeeblement, subjectivism, emotional agony, fantasizing, and formal subtleties); an orientation toward ancient tragedy and classicism (with their affirmation of suprapersonal, objective, absolute moral values, heroic stoicism of literary characters, clarity and “nobility” of style, strictness and “inevitability” in plot construction); a reliance on the “unshakable” traditions of classical European culture as a counterbalance to decadence and prosaic reality; and a break with the traditions of critical realism. The new humanism movement in the literature of the United States in the 1930’s constituted a special form of neoclassicism.

In the broad sense, the term “neoclassicism” denotes an intellectual-stylistic principle that often arose in the 19th and 20th centuries after a period of classicism. Based on the use of ancient Greek and Roman images, motifs, plots, and conflicts, neoclassicism was generally marked by traditional plastic perfection and clarity of poetic language. It acquired various intellectual and artistic meanings in different countries and different eras. Examples include the Anacreontic poetry of K. N. Batiushkov and A. S. Pushkin; the verse of A. N. Maikov and N. F. Shcherbina written in the style of classical Greek lyric poetry; the symbolist verse, dramas, and historical-cultural essays of V. I. Ivanov; the “antique” dramas of I. F. Annenskii; the romantic Hellenism of A. Chénier; the works of many of the Parnassian poets; and the existentialist drama of J. P. Sartre and J. Anouilh.

Neoclassicism in music, which is based on the same premises as in the other arts, has not been a systematic movement. One may speak only of isolated manifestations of neoclassicism in the works of various composers. M. Reger approached neoclassicism directly in his last compositions. P. Hindemith headed the neoclassical tendency in German music.

In the 1920’s, I. F. Stravinsky used a number of neoclassical elements in the operatic oratorio Oedipus Rex (1927); in the ballets Pulcinella (based on themes by Pergolesi, (1919), Apollo musagétes (based on themes by Lully, 1927), and Baiser de la fée (based on themes by Tchaikovsky, 1928); in A Symphony of Psalms (1930); and in an octet (1923). In the same period neoclassical tendencies clearly emerged in some works by the French Six, whose members included D. Milhaud, A. Honegger, and F. Poulenc. The same tendencies are also seen in individual works by O. Respighi and other composers.

Neoclassical musical works are very close to stylization. At the same time, their imitation of the music of the past is combined with modernization of the musical language and application of modern means of musical expression along with archaic ones. Overall, neoclassical tendencies in music are self-contradictory. The attempt to revive the clarity, organization, and logic of old musical styles frequently results in cold, formal imitation and the artificial use of obsolete techniques.

REFERENCES

Kolpinskii, Iu. “Fashizm i monumental’noe iskusstvo.” Iskusstvo, 1934. no. 4.
Durus, A. “K voprosu o khudozhestvennoi politike nemetskogo fashizma.” Iskusstvo. 1934, no. 5.
Rempel’. L. I. Arkhitektura poslevoennoi Italii. [Moscow, 1935.]
Grabar’-Passek, M. E. Antichnye siuzhety i formy v zapadno-evropeiskoi literature. Moscow, 1966.
Benois, A. N. “Russkii neoklassitsizm: Vozrozhdenie klassiki.” In Aleksandr Benua razmyshliaet. . . . Moscow [1968].
Borisova, E. A. “Neoklassitsizm.” In E. A. Borisova and T. P. Kazhdan, Russkaia arkhitektura kontsa 19-nachala 20 veka. Moscow, 1971.
Machul’skii, G. K. “Neoklassitsizm 60-kh godov (Filipp Dzhonson).” In the collection Arkhitektura sovremennogo Zapada. Moscow, 1973.
Reingardt, L. “Novaia veshchestvennost’ i ridzhionalizm.” In the collection Modernizm. Moscow, 1973.
Denis, M. Théories: 1890–1910. . . , 3rd ed. Paris, 1913.
Denis, M. Nouvelles théories: 1914–1921. Paris, 1922.
Hitchcock, A. Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Harmondsworth, 1958.
Stone, E. D. The Evolution of the Architect. New York, 1972.

A. V. IKONNIKOV (for neoclassicism in architecture)

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism of the 19th cent. A reinterpretation of the principles of Classical architecture in the late 18th and the early 19th century, and beyond. This term often includes the Federal style, Classical Revival style, and Greek Revival style and is generally characterized by: monumentality, colossal porticos, and columns; strict use of the Greek and Roman orders; sparing application of ornamentation, an unadorned roof line, and an avoidance of moldings. The term Neoclassical style is occasionally used as a synonym.

neoclassicism

1. a late 18th- and early 19th-century style in architecture, decorative art, and fine art, based on the imitation of surviving classical models and types 2. Music a movement of the 1920s, involving Hindemith, Stravinsky, etc., that sought to avoid the emotionalism of late romantic music by reviving the use of counterpoint, forms such as the classical suite, and small instrumental ensembles
www.comcen.com.au/~carowley/neoclass.htm
www.hypermusic.ca/hist/twentieth3.html

neoclassicism

ne·o·clas·si·cism

neoclassicism

neoclassicism

neoclassicism:

Neoclassicism

REFERENCES

Neoclassicism

neoclassicism

neoclassicism

Words related to neoclassicism

noun revival of a classical style (in art or literature or architecture or music) but from a new perspective or with a new motivation

Related Words