Neo-Grec
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"Neo-Grec" refers to a particular manifestation of the Neoclassical style most recognizable in the decorative arts, but detectable in painting, and architecture of France, during the Second Empire of Napoleon III, lasting approximately between 1848 and 1865. It was one of many "Revival Styles" of the 19th century, and just one among several concurrent modes of Classicism. The Neo-Grec vogue took as its starting point the excavations at Pompeii which began in earnest in 1848 and the earlier excavations at Herculaneum.
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Decorative arts
In decorative arts, Neo-Grec was based on the standard repertory of Greco-Roman ornament, combining motifs drawn from Greek vase-painting and repetitive architectural motifs like anthemions, palmettes, Greek key with elements from the Adam and Louis XVI styles of early Neoclassicism (c 1765-1790) and Napoleonic Egyptian styles; it can be identified by the frequent use of isolated motifs of Classical heads and figures, masks, winged griffins, sea-serpents, urns, medallions, arabesques and lotus buds confined within panels, shaped reserves or multiple borders of anthemion, guilloche and Greek fret pattern. Neo-Grec was eclectic, abstracted, polychromatic and sometimes bizarre. Its treatment was intentionally dry and linear. Its vignettes and repeating patterns lent themselves to stencilling. Typical "Neo-Grec" color harmonies were rich and harsh: black motifs and outlines against "Pompeian" red, powder blue and puce, bistre and olive drab might be combined in a single decor. Image:Bibliothèque St Geneviève Paris.jpg
Architecture
In architecture the Neo-Grec is not always clearly distinguishable from the Greek Revival of the earlier part of the century, buildings such as the Church of the Madeleine, Paris. The classic example of Neo-Grec architecture is Henri Labrouste's innovative Bibliothèque Sainte Genevieve in Paris. (1843-50), generally seen as the first major public building in this new mode of classicism.
Not only was the Neo-Grec popular in France, but in Victorian England, and especially in the United States, where its severity accorded with the "American Renaissance". The architectural historian Neil Levine has explained the style as a reaction against the rigidness of classicism. According to Levine, Neo-Grec was a somewhat looser style, which "replaced the rhetorical form of classical architectural discourse by a more literal and descriptive syntax of form." It was meant to be a "readable" architecture.
Painting
Image:The Cock-fight (Gérôme).jpg In painting, Neoclassical style continued to be taught in the French Academy des Beaux-Arts, inculcating crisp outlines, pellucid atmosphere, clear, clean palette. However, a formal Neo-Grec group of artists was created in the mid 19th century after growing interest in Ancient Greece and Rome, and especially the excavations at Pompeii. The Paris Salon of 1847, an art exhibition, revealed the academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, who in The Cock Fight depicted a composition where, at the time of antiquity, a young boy and a girl attend the combat of two cocks. Gérôme gained fame from this exhibition, and in the next year formed the Neo-Grec group with Jean-Louis Hamon and Henri-Pierre Picou—all three pupils in the same atelier under Charles Gleyre. Soon after, many other artists joined the group. Because they were inspired by discoveries at Pompeii they were also called néo-pompéiens.
The paintings of the Neo-Grec sought to capture everyday anecdotal trivialities of ancient Greek life, in a manner of whimsy, grace, and charm, and were often realistic, sensual and erotic. For this reason they were also called "anacreontic" after the Greek poet Anacreon who wrote sprightly verses in praise of love and wine. Alfred de Tanouarn describes one of Hamon's paintings as "clear, simple and natural, the idea, the attitudes and the aspects. It leads the lips a soft smile; it causes us an inexpressible feeling of pleasure in which one is happy to stop and view the painting". It can perhaps be said the motto of this group was "the goal of art is to charm". Many Neo-Grec paintings were also done in a horziontal layout as in a frieze decoration or Greek vases.
The Neo-Grec school was criticized in many respects; for its attention to historical detail it was said by Baudelaire "the scholarship is to disguise the absence of imagination", the subject matter was considered by many as trivial. The painters were also charged with selectively adopting the ancient Greek style, in that they left out noble themes and only focused on trivial daily life--they were accused of doing this to support the ideologies of the bourgeoisie middle-class.
Music
The Neo-Grec vogue even made its way into French music through the works of the composer Erik Satie in a series of pieces called Gymnopédies--the title a reference to dances performed by the youths of ancient Sparta in honour of Diana and Apollo at ceremonies commemorating the dead of the Battle of Thyrea. Their archaic melodies float above a modally oriented harmonic basis. The melodies of the Gnossiennes go further in this direction--they use ancient Greek chromatic mode (A - G flat - F - E - D flat - C - B - A) and an arabesque ornamentation.
See also
External links
- Greek Revival - Buffalo Architecture and History Neo-Grec features and examples from Buffalo
- Antique Room Neo-Grec furniture furniture gallery
- Bradbury & Bradbury Wallpapers Neo-grec roomset and links to wallpapers showing typical neo-grec patterns