(1728–1779), Gavin Hamilton (1723–1798), FrançoisGuillaume Ménageot (1744–1816), François
André Vincent (1746–1816), JeanFrançois Peyron (1744–1814), JosephBenoît Suvée ( Figure 2.5),
David (Figure 2.12), JeanBaptiste Regnault (1754–1829) and Angelica Kauffmann; and the sculptors
Houdon, ÉtienneMaurice Falconet (1716–1791), JeanPierreAntoine Tassaert (1727–1788),
Flaxman, Antonio Canova (1757–1822) and Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), some of whom had
produced earlier works in a rococo style. Neoclassical art could be inflected at times by rococo elements
of eroticism or “charm” as in Vien’s Cupid Seller (1763), or by elements of Gothic horror (Rosenblum,
1967, 7, 19–20, 11–19), while in other contexts, and particularly in David’s paintings, its austere linearity
and elevated themes set it apart more clearly from preceding styles.
Viccy Coltman has redefined neoclassicism as an attitude of mind, prevalent in the cultural elite, derived
from more scholarly study of ancient Greece and Rome. In the second half of the eighteenth century,
Roman ideas of liberty and civic virtue were disseminated and reformulated for a modern audience
through public education and the arts (Coltman, 2006. 7–8, 11, 195–196). The movement took many
forms, with national variations, the decorative neoclassical schemes of Robert Adam (1728–1792) and
Wedgwood in Britain contrasting with Winckelmann’s Greekinspired taste for ideal forms in Germany
or David’s need for a visual analogue of republican zeal (Coltman, 2006, 7–9). Neoclassical art attracted
generous critical support. However, this classical revival could not in itself rescue the history genre,
especially as royal commissions were so sparse. The popularity of genres other than history continued to
grow. In the second half of the eighteenth century the prevailing taste was for portraits or smaller
“cabinet” pictures in the more naturalistic Dutch and Flemish tradition inspired by scenes from
contemporary life.
In other respects, and within its diminishing field of influence, eighteenthcentury history painting
embraced stylistic pluralism. A common duality in play in discussions of style was that between the
“Roman” school, which corresponded largely with Wölfflin’s “classic” (see Introduction) and the
“Venetian” associated with a vivid use of color and looser brushwork in, for example, the work of
Veronese and Titian. The influence of Veronese was still very much alive in eighteenthcentury Venice,
where Sebastiano Ricci tried to emulate in his history paintings the colorist effects of the master (Levey,
1959, 19–24). In historical sculpture (figure groups based on ancient mythology, religion and history, with
some narrative content), the sublime and baroque effects of Michelangelo (swirling drapery, dramatic
gestures and poses) were as well esteemed in the eighteenth century as more “restrained” styles, although
the purer, more austere forms of neoclassical sculpture, derived from early classical Greek sculptural
traditions of the fifth century BCE, became prominent in its later decades. Stylistic flexibility, hybridity
and flux in academic history painting and sculpture illustrate the artificiality of any neat dualism in such
matters. An eclectic range of stylistic models reduced the hazard of conventionality, even within academic
practice.
Many of the social elite would have seen at first hand works by the masters from a range of schools or
traditions, as part of their Grand Tour of Europe – and would have learned to use canonical artists’ names
as ciphers for specific styles or “manners.” Thus, Raphael’s name was often evoked in references to the
work of High Renaissance and seventeenthcentury Roman, Bolognese and French artists such as
Poussin, Carlo Maratta (1625–1713), Andrea Sacchi (1599–1661), Louis de Boullogne, the Carraccis,
Guido Reni (1575–1642) and Le Sueur; while a Venetian emphasis on color, movement and loose
brushwork was evoked by the names of Titian, Jacopo Tintoretto (c.1518–1594) and the Tiepolos;
Rubens’ name was shorthand for a Flemish baroque tradition of color, dramatic composition and fleshy,
nonidealized bodies; and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573–1610), known as Caravaggio,
evoked baroque realism, dramatic compositions and effects of light and shadow. Taking France as an
example, Subleyras was heavily influenced by Maratta and Sacchi, while the midcentury work of Doyen