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Freedom, Neoclassicism, and Republican Nationalism

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Klassik im Vergleich Normativität und Historizität europäischer Klassiken

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Abstract

A powerful new myth of freedom thrived among artists and their patrons in Europe and America at the outset of the modern Age of Revolutions. For many reasons, ideals of liberty and constitutional government were coupled with good judgment and taste as reflected in the art, politics, and life style of Classical antiquity — a period then studied with unprecedented archaeological and philological intensity. Simply put, Neoclassic style presented the face and self-image of the first moderns, who, because of the clear merits they perceived and vested in ancient works, made of it a guide and norm. It filled a sore need and was quickly assimilated into the very fabric of government and manners, as well as the visual imagination.

This paper enlarges upon arguments introduced in my studies on Blake (n20), steel pens (n26), and the political use of styles, »Neoclasicism, the Art Style of Republican Nationalism,« Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century: Transactions of the Seventh International Congress on the Enlightenment, Budapest, 1987, 265, 1989, 1439–42. N. B. The arguments in the text and notes are supplemented by representative illustrations described in the Addendum and by a sampling of relevant quotations in the Appendix.

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Notes

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    Seymour Howard

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Wilhelm Voßkamp

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Howard, S. (1993). Freedom, Neoclassicism, and Republican Nationalism. In: Voßkamp, W. (eds) Klassik im Vergleich Normativität und Historizität europäischer Klassiken. Germanistische Symposien. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05558-3_31

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