Exploring Trends in Neoclassical Art: Subject Matter and Characteristics

hey guys this is April and today we're going to talk about the trends in neoclassical art so let us first focus

on subject matter there are three major subjects that neoclassical artists emphasized in their works first is

portraiture portraiture is always a biggie it seems like regardless of what time period you're covering another

common subject that artists depicted was history paintings this can be things that happened in the far distant past to

things that are more contemporary for example this painting by Benjamin West this event happened 11 years ago but to

them this was a contemporary event it was actually controversial because the soldiers were in contemporary dress the

monarchy refused to buy this piece the public though loved the painting the last subject matter that is heavily

focused on in artwork during this time and part of the reason why we call this neoclassical or new classical is well

classicism we see emphasis on mythology as well as history events that happened during Antiquity the subject matter we

don't see in neoclassical art are very religious paintings as well as paintings focused on love and sensuality like we

saw during the roko time period now there's a very clear reason why this is happening during neoclassical art the

big reason we don't see Many religious artworks are artworks that focus on love in the monarchy or Aristocrats is

because of the Enlightenment and the people behind that movement people of the Enlightenment believ that practical

experience as well as observation were the best approaches when it came to understanding the world rather than

religion or abstract thought we also see an emphasis on the promotion of the idea of Liberty and equality not for women

mainly for men though now these ideas strongly impacted what type of art was created during this time people during

this time wanted democracy they also wanted a separation of church from State as well as no monarchy so that's part of

the reason why we don't see Many religious works as well as paintings that emphasize the aristocracy this is

also why we see a very strong classical influence of art of this time period is because the culture greatly respected

the ancient Greeks and Romans because of the democratic government now even though we don't see Many religious works

during this time artists were still expected to have a moral message in their paintings one of the most common

moral messages that we see during this time is self-sacrifice or working for the common good of the people some art

though comes off as just straight up propaganda a lot of the art that we see during this time was created during the

French Revolution or during the time in which Napoleon Rises to power the death of morat by David is a great example of

both not only is it promoting the idea of self-sacrifice essentially Marat is shown like a martyr a Christian martyr

like Christ in a way but it also is propaganda for the French Revolution theid has taken some artistic liberties

with this piece for the sake of politics for example morat would have been in a very luxurious bathroom but in this

painting the bathroom is very simple we also see that morat has been shown as a very handsome individual but in real

life morat had a nasty skin condition in which he would have to bathe frequently so morat would have not been pretty on

the eyes to say the least referencing religious imagery glorifying death as well as tweaking the story for the sake

of the message these were all common Trends during neoclassicism another Trend that was a

result of the Enlightenment that we see in art during this time period is a lack of ornamentation for example when we

look at the Chiswick house there's very very little ornamentation and it's only white ornamentation was connected to the

church and to the monarchy so artists during this time period made works that were much more simple and less Gody one

other characteristic that's common in neoclassical work is the emphasis on structure and control compositions are

highly structured they have lots of angular forms bodies are arranged often in triangular formats the oath of thi is

a very good example when you look at the men giving the oath to their father their bodies are so rigid that you can

clearly see the Triangular form that their bodies create we also see control in the emotions that we see in these

paintings now the emotions are very intense but they're not over the top for example

if we go back to this painting by David if we look at the women the women are mourning but at the same time they're

controlled their eyes aren't red we don't see loads and loads of Tears crawling down their face they aren't

ripping out their hair it's almost so controlled that they seem like they're asleep or don't care so that's what I

mean by controlled emotion so that's all I have for the trends of neoc classical work if you guys have any questions or

comments leave them down below