The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (335 page)

 
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Neoclassicism
.

The dominant movement in European art and architecture in the late 18th and early 19th cents., characterized by a desire to re-create the spirit and forms of the art of Greece and Rome. A new and more scientific interest in
classical
antiquity, greatly stimulated by the discoveries at Pompeii (where excavations began in 1748) and Herculaneum, was one of the features of the movement, and it is also seen as mounting a reaction against the light-hearted and frivolous
Rococo
style. The order, clarity, and reason of Greek and Roman art appealed greatly in the Age of Englightenment, and the Neoclassical style could have moral as well as aesthetic implications, particularly in France, where it is associated with the Revolution and a desire to restore ancient Roman values into civil life. It is, indeed, in the paintings of
David
, with their antique grandeur and simplicity of form, and their heroic severity of tone, that Neoclassicism finds its purest expression, but the style was born and had its focal point in Rome.
Mengs
and
Winckelmann
were in the vanguard of the movement there, and other leading figures from all over Europe—
Canova
,
Flaxman
, Gavin
Hamilton
,
Thorvaldsen
—spent the main or important parts of their careers in the city. Many American artists worked there too—notably the sculptor Horatio
Greenough
, who was a pupil of Thorvaldsen—and took the Neoclassical style back to their country. Because Neoclassicism placed respect for approved models above personal expression it was a style that particularly lent itself to having this kind of international currency. The 18th cent. saw a great growth in the publication of lavishly illustrated volumes on classical art, architecture and antiquities, and this helped to spread the ideals of the movement. There was, however, considerable stylistic variation within Neoclassicism; Angelica
Kauffmann
, for example, painted in a delicate and pretty manner that is far removed from David's severity. Moreover, there is no firm dividing line between Neoclassicism and
Romanticism
, even though in some ways they appear to be at opposite spiritual poles. In the revival of interest in antique art, archaeological zeal could easily give way to a nostalgic yearning for a lost Golden Age, and the term ‘Romantic Classicism’ is sometimes used to characterize an aspect of Neoclassicism in which an interest in antiquity is tinged with Romantic feeling. In fact the antipathy between Classics and Romantics (exemplified by
Ingres
and
Delacroix
, for example) was unknown before the 19th cent., and it was only in the mid 19th cent., at a time when the antique revival style was out of fashion, that the word ‘Neoclassicism’ was coined—originally a pejorative term with suggestions of lifelessness and impersonality. These negative connotations have clung tenaciously to the term, and the ardent aspirations of the founders of Neoclassicism have been obscured by the fact that the more decorative aspects of the movement—Wedgwood pottery, for example—have become more closely associated with the word in the public consciousness than have the great masterpieces of David and Canova .
Neoclassicism is related to but can be distinguished from Greek Taste, which was a fairly superficial fashion for Greek-inspired decoration, and from the Greek Revival, which in architecture was a movement expressing a new interest in the simplicity and gravity of ancient Greek buildings. It began seriously in the 1790s and culminated in the 1820s and 1830s. Greek architecture became widely known in the west only around 1750–60 and in the early days of Neoclassicism it was regarded as primitive and few architects cared to imitate it.

 
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Neo-Dada
.

A term that has been applied to various styles, trends, or works that are perceived as reviving the methods or spirit of
Dada
. It has been used as a synonym for
Pop art
, for example, and has been applied to the work of Jasper
Johns
.

 
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Neo-Expressionism
.

Movement in painting (and to a lesser extent sculpture) emerging in the late 1970s, characterized by intense subjectivity of feeling and aggressively raw handling of materials. Neo-Expressionist paintings are typically large and rapidly executed, sometimes with materials such as straw or broken crockery embedded in their surfaces. They are usually figurative, often with violent or doomladen subjects, but the image is sometimes almost lost in the welter of surface activity. To some extent Neo-Expressionism marked a return to more traditional forms after the ‘anything goes’ experimentation of the 1970s. Perhaps partly for this reason it was welcomed by art dealers and collectors, but critical reaction to it has been very mixed. Several exponents, above all the American Julian Schnabel (1951– ), have become rich and famous, but to many critics their work seems deliberately bad, ignoring all conventional ideas of skill; indeed the term
‘Bad Painting’
(from the title of an exhibition at the New Museum, New York, in 1978) has been applied to certain works in the vein (Punk Art and Stupid Painting are alternative terms). Distinguishing between good
‘Bad Painting’
(i.e. that which deliberately cultivates crudeness for its emotional value) and bad
‘Bad Painting’
(something that is just a mess) is an unenviable critical task. Neo-Expressionism has flourished mainly in Germany (where its exponents are sometimes called Neue Wilden—‘New Wild Ones’), Italy, and the USA. Leading exponents include: in Germany, Georg
Baselitz
and Anselm Kiefer (1945– ); in Italy, Sandro Chia (1946– ) and Francesco Clemente (1952– ); in the USA, David Salle (1952– ) and Julian Schnabel . See also
NEW IMAGE PAINTING
.

 
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