NEO-CLASSICISM

 

Neo-Classicism, which had developed in the 18th century as a reaction against Baroque and Rococo, reached new heights in the Napoleonic era.  Drawings by the French painter Jacques Louis David (1748-1825) and Italian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822) describe the idealise heroic figures from classical antiquity, while the sinuous, clean lines of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) depict handsome but inscrutable models such as Louise de Broglie, the Countess d’Haussonville and Merry-Joseph Blondel.  The drawings of the English sculptor John Flaxman (1755-1826) and North American painter Benjamin West (1738-1820) present a different variant of Neo-Classical style in which the depiction of the natural world seems to look across to the work of Romantics .

 
Featured
Jacques-Louis David, Arrivée de Napoléon Ier à l'Hôtel de Ville, ca. 1805, pen and ink, Paris, Louvre Museum.
Jacques-Louis David, Arrivée de Napoléon Ier à l'Hôtel de Ville, ca. 1805, pen and ink, Paris, Louvre Museum.
Antonio Canova, Four Studies of Nude Men, undated, pen and brown ink, mounted on a card, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Antonio Canova, Four Studies of Nude Men, undated, pen and brown ink, mounted on a card, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Antonio Canova, Nude Study, undated, pen and brown ink, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Antonio Canova, Nude Study, undated, pen and brown ink, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Baron Antoine Jean Gros, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1793 - 1800, black chalk with stumping, USA, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Baron Antoine Jean Gros, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1793 - 1800, black chalk with stumping, USA, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Portrait of Merry-Joseph Blondel, 1809, graphite on white paper, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Portrait of Merry-Joseph Blondel, 1809, graphite on white paper, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Just how important drawing was to Ingres is clear from his statement, "Drawing is not just reproducing contours, it is not just the line; drawing is also the expression, the inner form, the composition, the modelling. See what is left after that. Drawing is seven eighths of what makes up painting." The subject of this portrait, Merry-Joseph Blondel, was a fellow painter of the Neoclassical school.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Anne-Joséphine-Cécile Raoul-Rochette, 1834, graphite on paper, Private Collection.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Anne-Joséphine-Cécile Raoul-Rochette, 1834, graphite on paper, Private Collection.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Vicomtess Othenin d'Haussonville, nee Louise Albertine de Broglie, study, ca. 1845, graphite, with white heightening, on paper, France, Musée de Carpentras.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Vicomtess Othenin d'Haussonville, nee Louise Albertine de Broglie, study, ca. 1845, graphite, with white heightening, on paper, France, Musée de Carpentras.

For a very informative account of Ingres’ use of materials and drawing techniques, see this blog written to coincide with an exhibition of the artist’s work at the Morgan Library and Museum in 2011

https://www.themorgan.org/blog/ingres-morgan-materials-and-methods

John Flaxman, Adam and Eve Guarded by the Angels, early 19th c, pen and grey ink, grey wash and graphite on slightly textured, cream paper, New Haven, Yale Center for British Art.
John Flaxman, Adam and Eve Guarded by the Angels, early 19th c, pen and grey ink, grey wash and graphite on slightly textured, cream paper, New Haven, Yale Center for British Art.

This illustration was produced by John Flaxman RA, the British Neoclassical sculptor and draughtsman, for Milton’s Paradise Lost. Flaxman’s illustrations of Homer, Aeschylus and Dante were famous, but he only produced a few illustrations of Milton allegedly because he did not want to compete with Henry Fuseli, who worked on forty paintings of scenes from 'Paradise Lost' for nearly a decade before exhibiting them at his own Milton Gallery in 1799-1800.

Benjamin West, Study for Thetis Bringing Armor to Achilles, 1805-6, pen and ink on paper, New Britain (CT), New Britain Museum of American Art.
Benjamin West, Study for Thetis Bringing Armor to Achilles, 1805-6, pen and ink on paper, New Britain (CT), New Britain Museum of American Art.
Benjamin West, Panthea Stabs Herself beside the Corpse of Abradatas, undated, brown ink, washes, and black chalk on white laid paper, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Benjamin West, Panthea Stabs Herself beside the Corpse of Abradatas, undated, brown ink, washes, and black chalk on white laid paper, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.