Mid-18th Century to Early-19th Century
Neoclassical Art is a severe, unemotional form of art harkening back to the style of ancient Greece and Rome. Its rigidity was a reaction to the overbred Rococo style and the emotional Baroque style. The rise of Neoclassical Art was part of a general revival of classical thought, which was of some importance in the American and French revolutions. Important Neoclassicists include the architects Robert Adam and Robert Smirke, the sculptors Antonio Canova, Bertel Thorvaldsen, and Jean-Antoine Houdon, and painters Anton Raphael Mengs, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and Jacques-Louis David. Around 1800, Romanticism emerged as a reaction to Neoclassicism. It did not really replace the Neoclassical style so much as act as a counterbalancing influence, and many artists were influenced by both styles to some degree.
