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This was a period of time where great strides in learning and scientific discovery were made, a period that greatly influenced the Neoclassical period of art as people slowly divorced themselves from the ideas of divine right to rule and the church having a say in government, rather than science and rational thought. It helped instill some of the most common themes for Neoclassical art: Patriotism, Honor, Morality, Revolution, Sacrifice, and Human Rights.
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Under King Charles VII, true excavation of Herculaneum and Pompeii started after being accidentally discovered in 1709.
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With the unearthing of these ancient cities, and the rise of the Enlightenment movement, came this art movement that was heavily inspired by the Ancient Greeks and Romans.
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Neoclassical Art slowly rose in popularity from 1750, and peaked around the 1780s and 90s before declining and ending around 1850. It rejected earlier movements like Rococo as it saw those pieces as frivolous. There was an inherent belief that art can and should have a moralizing message that represents how people should truly act. Some of the key artists of this time were Angelica Kauffman, Jacques-Louis David, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
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Angelica Kauffman, Portrait of a Lady, 1775, oil on canvas, 795mm by 635mm, Tate Britain Collection. Kauffman's painting exudes Neoclassical with its clear references to Greece in the lady's dress and the columns that she is supported by. The lady is portrayed realistically, but the ideals are very clear with a statue of Minerva to the lady's left and a pen and scroll in her hands, clearly indicating she is learned as well as her feet being covered, implying her nobility and class. -
Angelica Kauffman, oil on canvas, 30.75 inches by 43 inches, Annmary Brown Memorial Library, Brown University, Rhode Island. Yet another of Kauffman's exemplary pieces, it uses a common theme of mythology, with contemporary concerns. As the sculptor Zeuxis is comparing these models to eventually create a statue of Helen of Troy, a fifth model, carrying Kauffman's features, sneaks off and makes to paint, showing her underlying belief that women are capable of painting creating like men as well. -
A major shift that began close to the French Revolution, this art movement focused on individuality, nature and our place in it, and how terrifying it could be. The sublime was a key feature for these pieces and architectural marvels. Awe and fear, eclipsing all other feelings when you view these pieces. After the American Revolution, this movement also became closely aligned with nationalism, which spread to many other countries. It featured local folklore and traditions and many landscapes.
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Jacques-Louis David, The Oath of the Horatii, oil on canvas, 3.3m by 4.25m, Musee du Louvre, Paris. Considered one of the clearest examples of Neoclassical in the minds of most, this piece shows a scene from myth as these three brothers pledge to fight for Rome or die trying. Patriotism and sacrifice at its finest, as David most likely intended with this piece that was debutted in the Salon de Paris. -
The Revolution! A critical turning point that helped cement the ideas The Enlightenment worked to introduce. Before and after this, many of the aristocracy and various artists went on the Grand Tour, a tour of many parts of Italy, including the rediscovered Pompeii and Herculaneum, to study and become more worldly. The ancient art there heavily influenced the styling of the Neoclassical art both before and after the Revolution. -
Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat, oil on canvas, 165cm by 128cm, Royal Museum of Fine Art, Brussels, Belgium. Here David has in part elevated Marat to almost Christ-like martyrdom with a pose similar to the Pieta. Additionally, the key features of Marat only reading this letter in an unadorned room with only a plain wooden box spoke to a common theme of honor and partriotism for this French Revolution leader. -
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Achilles Receiving the Ambassadors of Agamemnon, oil on canvas, 63.5 cm by 82.55cm, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts (ENSBA), Paris, France. This gorgeous painting shows Achilles and Patroclus being approached by Odysseus and his men as they urge him to fight again. This could easily be an urging by the artist to inspire young men to fight on Napoleon's side of the war, and to show disdain for those who refused, as it lends emotion to Achilles Patroclus. -
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Napoleon on his Imperial Throne, oil on canvas, 260cm by 163cm, Musee de l'Armee, Paris. The elevation of Napoleon to a potential god is very strong here, with two separate staffs, one topped by the hand of Christ and the other the Scepter of Charlemagne. His pose is reminiscent of portrayals of Jupiter in another of Ingres's pieces, linking mythology once again. There is grandeur abound in his attire despite Napoleon's clear and realistic figure, another hallmark. -
As France's power consolidated under Napoleon, their view from their colonial power made the East into the other, something exotic to be tamed and changed. Despite increased trade based from the Silk Road, their views of those on the other end led to this movement developing between Neoclassicism and Romanticism.
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Francisco Goya, The Third of May, 1808, oil on canvas, 268cm by 347cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid. Commissioned to paint this by the Spanish government to commerate the expulsion of the French in 1814, it very clearly displays the horrors of the Peninsular War with France, the French soldiers seeming almost like a brutal mob while each Spainard is painted in fine detail. The heap of Spanish bodies in the bottom left and the stark light on the main figure only serve to heighten this horror commited. -
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Grande Odalisque, oil on canvas, 91cm by 162cm, Louvre Museum, Paris. In France, Ingres' seminal work helped define Orientalism as a movement and drove further pieces easily. The clear objectification of the woman, with hallmarks of a turban, hookah and elaborate colorful drapes helps place this in Orientalism, where eroticism of the figures in these pieces was much less veiled than earlier works. However, her form is still idealized, despite the weird anatomy. -
Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, oil on plaster wall, transferred to canvas, 83cm by 136cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid. A terrifying painting discovered in Goya's La Quinta Del Sordo, this painting's haunting subject matter could be a metaphor for many things, how time consumes all, (the sublime feeling of this aspect of nature), political commentary on Ferdinand VII's oppressive rule of Spain, Goya's loss of skill as he aged. Unfortunately, we will never know with certainty. -
Thomas Cole, The Oxbow, oil on canvas, 51.5in by 76in, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A great example of that nationalism that infused later Romantic paintings, as it depicts a cultivated eastern area, replete with farmland around the oxbow, while the western portion is unkempt, dark wilderness. Manifest Destiny and the taming of the west was on the minds of many Americans, and Thomas Cole shows tension between that ideal and the raw force of nature that pushes back. -
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Turkish Bath, oil on canvas mounted on wood, 1.1m by 1.1m, Musee du Louvre, Paris. Begun in 1852 and only truly finished in 1863, this piece shows an imagined bathhouse with multitudes of naked women in a variety of poses. Many of them are far more abstracted from the neoclassical adherence of form, turning them into titillating displays of flesh with the addition of Oriental context in the name and addition of turbans, lush rugs, and lack of a moral message. -
Jean-Leon-Gerome, Bashi-Bazouk, oil on canvas, 31.75 in. by 26in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The bright colors and intricate silks serve to exoticize this figure posed almost like a model. They are a soldier for hire but the turned away face almost implied a disdain or lack of affection by war and battle that they were hired for. -
Jean-Leon Gerome, The Snake Charmer, oil on canvas, 82.2cm by 121cm, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts. The bright blue of the room combined with members of different stereotyped islamic tribes watching this nude child, wrapped in a serpent, posing as a musician plays, entrancing the serpent and the watchers as well. Their surroundings are worn and mostly sparse, except for the men around them, lending more grandeur to the men in opposition to the child and musician. -
“Discovery and Excavation.” Omeka RSS, omeka.wellesley.edu/piranesi-rome/exhibits/show/discovery-of-pompeii-and-hercu/discovery-and-excavation. Accessed 15 Sept. 2025.
“Grand Tour.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Aug. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour.
Tate. “‘Portrait of a Lady’, Angelica Kauffman, c.1775.” Tate, www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kauffman-portrait-of-a-lady-t00928. Accessed 15 Sept. 2025. -
Enlightenment | British Museum, www.britishmuseum.org/collection/galleries/enlightenment. Accessed 15 Sept. 2025.
Works of Art Collected by Rush Christopher Hawkins for the Annmary Brown Memorial, library.brown.edu/collections/amb/detail.php?ItemID=AB+21. Accessed 15 Sept. 2025.
Khan Academy, Khan Academy, www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/enlightenment-revolution/a/david-oath-of-the-horatii. Accessed 15 Sept. 2025. -
French, Jean-Léon Gérôme. “Jean-Léon Gérôme - Bashi-Bazouk.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/440723. Accessed 15 Sept. 2025.
Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique. “Ambassadors Sent by Agamemnon to Urge Achilles to Fight, 1801 - Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.” Www.Wikiart.Org, 1 Jan. 1970, www.wikiart.org/en/jean-auguste-dominique-ingres/ambassadors-sent-by-agamemnon-to-urge-achilles-to-fight-1801. -
Smarthistory – Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Napoleon on His Imperial Throne, smarthistory.org/ingres-napoleon-on-his-imperial-throne/. Accessed 16 Sept. 2025.
Smarthistory – Painting Colonial Culture: Ingres’s La Grande Odalisque, smarthistory.org/painting-colonial-culture-ingress-la-grande-odalisque/. Accessed 16 Sept. 2025.
Smarthistory – Thomas Cole, the Oxbow, smarthistory.org/cole-the-oxbow/. Accessed 16 Sept. 2025. -
Khan Academy, Khan Academy, www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/enlightenment-revolution/a/david-oath-of-the-horatii. Accessed 15 Sept. 2025.
Smarthistory – Francisco Goya, the Third of May, 1808, smarthistory.org/goya-third-of-may-1808/. Accessed 16 Sept. 2025.
Smarthistory – Jacques-Louis David, the Death of Marat, smarthistory.org/jacques-louis-david-the-death-of-marat/. Accessed 16 Sept. 2025.