Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism was a movement in art, architecture, literature and music, dominant between roughly 1760 and 1830, that drew its inspiration from the art of ancient Greece and Rome. It was encouraged by the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii and by the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and it was in tune with the Enlightenment's emphasis on reason and order. It was a reaction against the ornate Baroque and Rococo styles. In painting its leading figure was Jacques-Louis David, in sculpture Antonio Canova, and in architecture it produced buildings such as the Pantheon in Paris and the United States Capitol. Neoclassical ideals also suited the revolutions of the period. In the early nineteenth century the movement gave way to Romanticism.

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