Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism arose in reaction against the perceived frivolity of the Rococo, inspired by the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum and the writings of Winckelmann. Jacques-Louis David became its supreme practitioner. His Oath of the Horatii (1784) and Death of Marat (1793) fused classical form with revolutionary politics, creating some of the most powerful political images ever painted.

The movement spread across Europe: Mengs in Rome, Kauffman in London, and Ingres (who carried Neoclassical principles deep into the nineteenth century) all sought to revive the moral seriousness and formal clarity of ancient art. Neoclassicism was inseparable from the political upheavals of its time, from the American and French Revolutions to the Napoleonic Wars, and its austere, heroic imagery was consciously deployed as a weapon of political persuasion.