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Neoclassicism vs. Romanticism

Neoclassicism and Romanticism were two very in uential but very di erent movements in Western art. In this
lesson, we'll explore both and see what ideals each one represented.

The Aesthetic Pendulum

For most of European history, we can look at people's tastes in ne arts as a pendulum. The basic
ideas behind the art are the same, what we call the Western aesthetic, but every few decades the
pendulum swings from one side of the fulcrum to the other. Arts go from austere, to highly
decorative, to austere, and back and forth and back and forth. That's about 500 years of art history
in a nutshell, so you're welcome for that.

One place where we see the pendulum swing pretty dramatically is in the early 19th century. On
the one hand, there was the Neoclassicism movement, which was de ned by calm rationality. On
the other hand was Romanticism, which was dramatic and imaginative. It was a swing of the
pendulum so extreme that it cracked the fulcrum, challenging some of the tenets of Western art
itself.

Neoclassicism Begins
Let's start by examining the movement of Neoclassicism. Neoclassicism itself was created by a
swing in the pendulum, a rejection of the ornate and emotional forms of the Baroque and Rococo
periods. Emerging in the 18th century and carrying into the 19th, Neoclassicism sought to return
restrained, rational logic to European arts. It did this through the revival of the original source of
the Western aesthetic: ancient Greek and Roman ideologies.

Neoclassicism emulated the mathematical harmonies, exact proportions, and collected aesthetic of
the ancient world. The comparison is most obvious in architecture, leading to an abundance of
buildings across Europe and the young United States which looked like Greek or Roman structures.
However, the ideologies of this movement extended into painting, sculpture, and literature as well.
Neoclassical arts were de ned by clear and intentional lines, proportional harmony, and above all,
a sense of rational logic.

Where did this style come from? It was a rejection of previous arts but was even more importantly,
informed by a major philosophical movement of the time, the Enlightenment. Enlightenment
thinkers challenged the traditions of European society, claiming that only that which could be
empirically or rationally proven could be trusted. They based this idea largely on Greek philosophy,

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which held that individual rationale was the only pathway to absolute truth. In deference to the
Classical philosophies they revived, Enlightenment thinkers celebrated the revival of Classical
artistic ideals; hence the term Neoclassicism.

Romanticism Emerges
Neoclassicism had a huge impact on places like the United States. The Declaration of
Independence is one of the clearest articulations of Enlightenment philosophy of all time, and the
U.S.A. used Neoclassical arts to create a symbolic parallel between their republic and the Roman
Republic. Even the U.S. Capitol was modeled on Roman temples.

Then the pendulum started to swing. Independence had been won, many countries in Europe had
been reformed by the Enlightenment, and as the 19th century began, more artists started rejecting
the Enlightenment's focus on unemotional logic and universal truths. Instead, they wanted to focus
on individual emotion and imagination. This was the start of Romanticism.

Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement that ourished from about 1800-1850, give
or take a few years on either end. It rejected Neoclassicism by creating artwork that was very
emotional, dramatic, and personal. Brushstrokes became thicker and unrestrained, perfect
symmetry was abandoned, and colors were contrasted in theatrical ways. In the Neoclassical
movement, art often depicted historic themes, building a canon of examples for the ideal citizen to
emulate. In the Romantic movement, the focus was on contemporary themes, largely those
experienced by the artists personally.

Neoclassicism was fascinated with the power of individual rational logic as a pathway to absolute
truth. Romantic artists shared this interest in the power of the human mind, but for them, it was
not human logic that led to universal truth, but rather the human subconscious that led to personal
truths. Romanticism was obsessed with the power, often the dark and terrifying power, of the
subconscious, and explored that through poetry about insanity, paintings of nightmares, and
drawings of gruesome memories that haunted the mind.

The Romantic fascination with the subconscious led to their ultimate philosophical goal: the hunt
for the sublime. The sublime was an overpowering sense of awe and dread in the face of
something absolutely and uncontrollably powerful. The sublime was terrifying in its scope, but
magni cent to behold. It was a way to understand the subconscious and power of the human
mind. Romantic artists looked to nd it in Medieval and Gothic arts rather than Greek and Roman,
in their dreams and fantasies, and in nature, which is why landscape painting ourished at this
time.

In rejecting Neoclassicism, Romantic artists began to nd themselves rejecting the foundations of

Western art itself. They developed an Orientalist obsession with the exotic, looking to the Middle
East and East Asia for inspiration. These themes were still portrayed in a very Western way, and it
certainly cannot be said that Romanticism broke the Western aesthetic. However, in creating
Romanticism, the pendulum had swung so hard that, for the rst time, cracks were starting to
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show. By the end of the century, other European artists were consciously rejecting all Western
presuppositions and looking to Japanese, African, and Polynesian art in the quest for true
abstraction.

Lesson Summary
Let's review what we've learned. At the dawn of the 19th-century, two very di erent styles brie y
overlapped. This was the end of the Neoclassicism, built on a revival of Greek and Roman ideals,
rational, logical, and artistic/mathematical perfection. It was also the beginning of Romanticism,
which rejected Neoclassicism for arts that were personal, emotional, and dramatic. Whereas
Neoclassicism focused on universal truths, historical examples, and logic, Romanticism focused on
the personal subconscious, contemporary events, and the sublime. Romanticism also looked for
more inspiration outside of Western aesthetics. It was an exotic Orientalism that didn't really break
from Western traditions, but opened the door to greater exploration of non-Western arts down the
road. After Romanticism, the pendulum would swing again, but with every subsequent swing, more
and more cracks were showing in European ideas about art.

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