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Dictionary of Art
and Artists

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CHAPTER ONE
NEOCLASSICISM AND ROMANTICISM
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NEOCLASSICISM
PAINTING
SCULPTURE and
ARCHITECTURE-
Part 1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14
THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT
PAINTING
SCULPTURE and
ARCHITECTURE -
Part1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15,
16,
17,
18,
19,
20
PHOTOGRAPHY
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THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT
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ARCHITECTURE
Given the individualistic nature of Romanticism, we might expect the
range of revival styles to be widest in painting, the most personal and
private of the visual arts, and narrowest in architecture, the most
communal and public. Yet the opposite is true. Painters and sculptors
were unable to abandon Renaissance habits of representation, and never
really revived medieval art or ancient art before the Classical Greek
era. Architects were not subject to this limitation, however, and the
revival styles persisted longer in architecture than in the other arts.
The Classic and Gothic Revivals
The late eighteenth century, as we noted before, had come to favor
the heavier and more austere Greek Doric over the Roman. This "Greek
revival" phase of Neoclassicism was pioneered on a small scale in
England, but was quickly taken up everywhere, since it was believed to
embody more of the "noble simplicity and calm grandeur" of classical
Greece than did the later, less "masculine" orders. Greek Doric was also
the least flexible order, hence particularly difficult to adapt to
modern tasks even when combined with Roman or Renaissance elements. Only
rarely could Greek Doric architecture furnish a direct model for
Neoclassic structures. We instead find adaptations of it combined with
elements derived from the other Greek orders.
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SCHINKEL.
The Altes Museum (Old Museum; fig.
924)
by Karl Friedrich Schinkel
(1781-1841) is a spectacular example of the Greek
revival. The main entrance looks like a Doric temple seen from the side
(see fig. 169), but with
Ionic columns strung across a Corinthian order (compare figs.
165 and
180). The building is notable for its bold design
and refined proportions. Schinkel, an architect of great ability, began
as a painter in the style of Caspar David Friedrich and also worked as a stage
designer before joining the Berlin public works office, which he later
headed. Hence, he knew well how to infuse architecture with Romantic
associations and a theatrical flair worthy of Piranesi. Schinkel's first
love was the Gothic, and although most of his public buildings are in a
Greek style, they retain a strong element of the picturesque. Here the
monumental facade, with its broad expanse of columns, is stretched to an
enormous width. The measured cadence is intended to establish a
contemplative mood appropriate to viewing art in a repository of
antiquities.
Schinkel set a precedent that was soon taken up everywhere.
He was the first to treat a museum as a temple of the arts. Such an
association could find sanction in the classical past: the small
pinakotheke (picture gallery) at the entrance to the Acropolis (fig.
176).
The Altes Museum expresses the veneration
of ancient Greece in the land of Winckelmann and Mengs. To the poet
Goethe, it remained the pinnacle of civilization. The Altes Museum is,
furthermore, testament to the enlightened attitude that gave rise to art
museums, galleries, and academies on both sides of the Atlantic during
the nineteenth century. At the same time, the Greek style served the
imperial ambitions of Prussia, which emerged as a major power at the Congress of Vienna in
1815.
The imposing grandeur of the Altes Museum proclaims
Berlin as the new Athens, with Kaiser Wilhelm III as a modern Pericles.
It is characteristic of Romanticism that at the time architects
launched the classical revival, they also started a Gothic revival.
England was far in advance here, as it was in the development of
Romantic literature and painting. Gothic forms had never wholly
disappeared in England. They were used on occasion for special purposes,
even by Sir Christopher Wren and Sir John Vanbrugh , but these were
survivals of an authentic, if outmoded, tradition. The conscious
revival, by contrast, was linked with the cult of the picturesque, and with the
vogue for medieval (and pseudomedieval) romances.

924. KARL FRIEDRICH SCHINKEL. Altes Museum. Berlin. 1824-28

924. KARL FRIEDRICH SCHINKEL. Altes Museum. Berlin. 1824-28
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Karl Friedrich Schinkel
born March 13, 1781, Brandenburg
died Oct. 9, 1841, Berlin
German architect and painter whose Romantic–Classical
creations in other related arts made him the leading arbiter
of national aesthetic taste in his lifetime.
The son of an archdeacon, Schinkel studied architecture with
the brilliant Friedrich Gilly (1798–1800) and at Berlin's
Academy of Architecture (1800–02), followed by several years
in Italy. Returning to Berlin via Paris (1805), he became a
painter. He designed furniture for Queen Louise in 1809
that, with its rich, light-coloured pearwood, play of
matched grains, and romantic simplification of form in a
classical milieu, anticipated the forthcoming Biedermeier
period.
Becoming state architect of Prussia in 1815, Schinkel
executed many commissions for King Frederick William III and
other members of the royal family. His designs were based on
the revival of various historical styles of architecture;
e.g., Greek Revival buildings such as the Königschauspelhaus,
Berlin (1818), and the Altes Museum, Berlin (1822–30). His
designs for a mausoleum for Louise (1810) and the brick and
terra-cotta Werdersche Kirche, Berlin (1821–30), are among
the earliest Gothic Revival designs in Europe.
In 1824 Schinkel visited Italy again and in 1826 travelled
through Scotland and England. Appointed director (1830) of
the Prussian Office of Public Works, he decorated
apartmentsfor Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and Prince
August. His work as a city planner resulted in new
boulevards and squares in Berlin. Also remembered for his
stage and ironwork designs, he designed scenery for Goethe's
plays, bathing the whole stage in an atmosphere of
picturesque illusion.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
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Karl Friedrich Schinkel. New Guard House (Neue Wache), Berlin

Schinkel's Neues Schauspielhaus ("New Theatre"), Berlin; now the
Konzerthaus Berlin.

Schauspielhaus in Berlin, 1816 - 1818, von Karl Friedrich Schinkel
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see also:
Karl Friedrich
Schinkel (painting)
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Karl Friedrich
Schinkel.
Medieval Town by Water
after 1813
Oil on canvas, 94 x 126 cm
Neue Pinakothek, Munich

Karl Friedrich
Schinkel.
Gothic Cathedral with Imperial Palace
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WALPOLE.
In this spirit Horace Walpole
(1717-1797), midway in the eighteenth century,
enlarged and "gothicized" his country house. Strawberry Hill (figs.
925 and
926), a process that took some
two decades and involved his circle of friends (including Robert Adam,
who was responsible for the round tower). On the exterior, the rambling
structure has a studied irregularity that is decidedly picturesque.
Inside, most of the elements were copied or faithfully adapted from
authentic Gothic sources. The screen in Holbein Chamber (fig.
926) is derived from a gate at
Rouen, while the chimney is related to a tomb in Canterbury Cathedral.
Although Walpole associated the Gothic with the pathos of the sublime,
he acknowledged that the house is "pretty and gay." The dainty, flat
surfaces remind us strongly of Robert Adam (compare fig.
874): the interior looks almost
as if it were decorated with lace-paper doilies. This playfulness, so
free of dogma, gives Strawberry Hill its special charm. Gothic here is
still an "exotic" style. It appeals because it is strange, but for that
very reason it must be "translated," like a medieval romance, or like
the Chinese motifs that crop up in Rococo decoration.

925. HORACE WALPOLE, with WILLIAM ROBINSON and
others. Strawberry Hill, Twickenham. 1749-77
926. Interior, Strawberry Hill
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