CLASSICAL PERIOD

July 19, 2013

Classical Art

Restrained style in arts

A style of art and architecture based on Greek and Roman models or principles, characterized by

regularity of form and restraint of expression

It was particularly expressed in the Enlightenment, and the Age of Reason.
Classicism is a force which is often present in post-medieval European and European influenced
traditions; however, some periods are more connected to the classical ideals than others,
particularly the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment, and some classicizing movements in

Modernism.
The imitation or use primarily of the style and aesthetic principles of ancient Greek and Roman
classical art and an emphasis on the society

Examples of Classical Art

The Inspiration of a Poet, Nicholas Poussin, 1630

is an oil-on-canvas by artist in the classical styleNicolas

Poussin, painted between 1629 and 1630. It is currently held
and exhibited at the Louvre in Paris.

Napoleon Crossing the Alps -

Jacques Louis David

(also known as Napoleon

at the Saint-Bernard Pass or Bonaparte

Crossing the Alps) is the

title given to the five versions of an oil on

canvas equestrian

portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte painted

by the French

artist Jacques-Louis David between 1801

and 1805. Initially

commissioned by the king of Spain, the

composition shows a

strongly idealized view of the real

crossing that Napoleon

and his army made across the Alps

through the Great St.

Bernard Pass in May 1800.

Sculpture and Architecture

Horatio Greenough
Washington

CLASSICAL PERIOD
July 19, 2013
George Washington (1840) is a massive sculpture by Horatio Greenough
commissioned for the centennial of U.S President George Washington's birth in
February 22, 1732.
Horatio Greenough based Enthroned Washington on Phidias' great statue of Zeus
Olympios which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World(and which was
destroyed in late Antiquity).
The seated and sandal wearing Washington gazes sternly ahead. He is bare-chested
and his right arm and hand gesture with upraised index finger toward heaven. His left palm and forearm
cradle a sheathed sword, hilt forward, symbolizing Washington turning over power to the people at the
conclusion of the American Revolutionary War.
The rear base of the statue has an inscription, as follows:
SIMULACRUM ISTUD
AD MAGNUM LIBERTATIS EXEMPLUM
NEC SINE IPSA DURATURUM
HORATIUS GREENOUGH
FACIEBAT
The translation is: "Horatio Greenough made this image as a great example of freedom, and will not survive
without freedom itself."

University of Virginia (Designer T. Jefferson)

Classicism door in Olomouc, The Czech Republic

CLASSICAL PERIOD
July 19, 2013

The

Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries