EUROPEAN GRAND TOUR (18^th c until 1796)

Trip of Northern Europeans (British in particular) to Italy
          no longer for religious reasons (medieval pilgrimage center)
          but to complete one’s education and to acquire taste.
 Rome principal destination. becomes a cosmopolitan meeting ground.

Ancient Rome contrasted with contemporary Italians. Adventures and dangers 
18th C: Italian saying about English tourists
  “inglese italianato, diavolo incarnato.”Italianized Englishman, the devil incarnate

Rise of archeology. 
    Discovery of Herculaneum in 1738 and Pompeii in 1748. 
    Excavations and exportation of ancient artifacts.

Establishment of the Pio-Clementine Museum in 1770 (expansion of Vatican)
    by Popes Clement XIV and Pius VI

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NEOCLASSICISM (mid 18^th to early 19^th centuries)

Reaction against Baroque and Rococo Art
Links to Enlightenment:   idealized beauty
        “true style” timeless style for timeless truths
        imitation (but not copying) of ancient art
        rational, universal, moral, stoic: becomes linked to political values of
                French Revolution, later more of a decorative style under Napoleon
Secular art form: first major art movement not focused on  ecclesiastical art
         --historical classicism is a favorite subject: historical paintings

Artists:    Sculptor: Antonio Canova (1757-1822)
               Painter: Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)

Greco-Roman Debate:which is greater, Greek or Roman art?

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) pro- Greek art
       Prussian Lutheran, convert to Catholicism, Curator of Papal Antiquities
   Views:
          Greek art: noble simplicity and quiet grandeur
          Greek art is living art (imitation)
          Climate: perfection and beauty of Greek art is due to perfection and beauty  
                   of Greek people (in antiquity, not in modern era)
   versus
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) pro-Roman art-
   interpretations of ruins shifts from sic transit motif to gloria mundi motif
   [sic transit gloria mundi: means “thus passes the glory of the world]
   shift from emphasis on “past glory” to stress on “glory” itself
   creative complexity of Roman art is superior to primitive purity of Greek art
   magnificence, mass, scale, complexity, invention

Neoclassical Art in Rome Slides

GRAND TOUR:  Monuments Spanish Steps:  1721-25: Francesco de Santis
                                            Trevi Fountain: 1732-62: Nicola Salvi

Nathaniel Dance: Four English Gentlemen in Front of Colosseum (1769)

Pompeo Battoni (1708-1787); Portrait painter of English Grand Tour nobility:

William Page, Mrs. William Page, 1860

Giovanni Paolo Panini: Roman monuments (Veduta ideata = imagined view)
     Views of Ancient Rome with Artist finishing a copy of Aldobrandini Wedding (1755)
                  (multiple tourist type paintings displayed in an imagined museum room)

Benigne Gagnereaux:
   Pius VI Accompanying Gustav II of Sweden on a Visit to the Museo Pio-Clementino (1786)
Joshua Reynolds: Parody of the School of Athens
Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein: Goethe in the Roman Campagna, 1787

GRECO-ROMAN DEBATE AND NEOCLASSICISM:

1) Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768)
--Anton von Maron: Portrait of Winckelmann (1768)
--Apollo Belvedere (Greek classic: orginal 330 BC)—“Greek idealized beauty”
--Laocoön (Hellenistic, 20BC-20AD)—“noble simplicity and calm grandeur”

2) Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) – engravings
--(Felice Polanzini: “Portrait of Piranesi”) (1750)
--Grotesque (1744)
--Campo Vaccino (Cow Pasture =  Roman forum) (before 1751)
     shows Arches & Forum monuments half buried in mud
--Temple of Vespasian
--Colosseum (before 1779)
--Foundations of Hadrian’s Tomb
--Antichita’ di Roma: Via Appia
--Veduta ideata [Imagined view]: Great Port
--Veduta ideata:  Temple of Vesta 
--Ichnographia of Campus Martius / St. Peter’s / Piazza Navona

3) Antonio Canova (1757-1822) (Neoclassical Sculptor)

--Self-portrait, 1812
--Perseus Holding Head of Medusa (Compare to Cellini’s Perseus)
--Tomb of Clement XIV (1787); contrast with Bernini’s Tomb of Alexander VII (1671-8)
--Mausoleum of Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria (1798-1805)
--Cupid and Psyche (1792)
--Stuart Monument in St. Peter’s (1819)
­--Pauline Borghese Bonaparte as Venus Victrix (1808)
--Napoleon as Mars the Peace Maker (1811)

4) Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) (Neoclassical Painter)
compare preceding style, Rococo:
--Jean Honore Fragonard (examples of Rococo):
                        Women Bathing, The Swing (1764)
David: Self-portrait (1791)
--Minerva Against Mars (1771)
--Oath of the Horatii (1784): episode from Bk I Livy, Horatii vs Curatii
                                         geometrical shapes, triangles, groups of threes
--Lictors Bring Back to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789)
             loyalty to the new state (here French Revol) over family
--Oath of the Tennis Court (1791): opening event of French Revolution
--Death of Marat (1793): assassination of French revolutionary by
                                    royalist supporter, Charlotte Corday
--Battle of the Romans and Sabines (1799): example of Roman historical
                  episode used to depict French Revolution events;
                  building in the background is actually Bastille Prison in Paris
                                   (in painting, Capitoline Hill with Temple of Jupiter)