Néo-Grec was a Neoclassical Revival style of the mid-to-late 19th century that was popularized in architecture, the decorative arts, and in painting during France's Second Empire, or the reign of

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A neph ...

(1852–1870). The Néo-Grec vogue took as its starting point the earlier expressions of the Neoclassical style inspired by 18th-century excavations at

Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was burie ...

, which resumed in earnest in 1848, and similar excavations at

Herculaneum Herculaneum (; Neapolitan and it, Ercolano) was an ancient town, located in the modern-day ''comune'' of Ercolano, Campania, Italy. Herculaneum was buried under volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Like the n ...

. The style mixed elements of the

Graeco-Roman The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were dir ...

, Pompeian,

Adam Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...

and Egyptian Revival styles into "a richly eclectic polychrome mélange."James Stevens Curl & Susan Wilson, eds., "Néo-Grec," ''The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture'' (Oxford University Press, 2015

/ref> "The style enjoyed a vogue in the United States, and had a short-lived impact on interior design in England and elsewhere."

Architecture

In architecture, the Néo-Grec is not always clearly distinguishable from the Neoclassical designs of the earlier part of the century, in buildings such as the Church of the Madeleine, Paris. The classic example of Néo-Grec architecture is Henri Labrouste's innovative Bibliothèque Sainte Genevieve in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

, 1843–50, generally seen as the first major public building in this later mode of classicism. Not only was the Néo-Grec popular in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, but also in Victorian

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and especially in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, where its severity accorded with the American Renaissance. The architectural historian Neil Levine has explained the style as a reaction against the rigidity of

Classicism Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aesthet ...

. According to Levine, Néo-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. American architect

Richard Morris Hunt Richard Morris Hunt (October 31, 1827 – July 31, 1895) was an American architect of the nineteenth century and an eminent figure in the history of American architecture. He helped shape New York City with his designs for the 1902 entrance fa� ...

introduced Néo-Grec massing into his buildings in the late 1860s and 1870s. Hunt's student,

Frank Furness Frank Heyling Furness (November 12, 1839 - June 27, 1912) was an American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his diverse, muscular, often unordinarily scaled b ...

, did the same in his early Philadelphia buildings, and experimented with using massing and visual "weight" for dramatic effect. Image:Bibliothèque St Geneviève Paris.jpg, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (1843–1850), Paris, Henri Labrouste, architect File:Lenox Library Loeffler.jpg, Lennox Library (1871–77, demolished 1910), Manhattan, New York City, Richard Morris Hunt, architect File:Northern Saving Fund.JPG, Northern Savings Fund Society (1871–72), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Frank Furness, architect File:FRONT ELEVATION, LOOKING SOUTHWEST - Kensington National Bank, 2-8 West Girard Avenue, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA HABS PA,51-PHILA,460-1.tif, Kensington National Bank (1877), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Frank Furness, architect File:ProvidentTrust.jpg, Provident Life and Trust Company (1876–79, demolished 1960), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Frank Furness, architect

Decorative arts

In the 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

anthemion The palmette is a motif in decorative art which, in its most characteristic expression, resembles the fan-shaped leaves of a palm tree. It has a far-reaching history, originating in ancient Egypt with a subsequent development through the art o ...

palmette The palmette is a motif in decorative art which, in its most characteristic expression, resembles the fan-shaped leaves of a palm tree. It has a far-reaching history, originating in ancient Egypt with a subsequent development through the art ...

s, Greek key with elements from the

and

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

styles of early Neoclassicism (c. 1765–1790), and of Napoleonic-era Egyptian Revival decorative arts; it can be identified by the frequent use of isolated motifs of Classical heads and figures, masks, winged griffins, sea-serpents, urns, medallions,

arabesque The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements. Another definition is "Foli ...

s 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

stencil Stencilling produces an image or pattern on a surface, by applying pigment to a surface through an intermediate object, with designed holes in the intermediate object, to create a pattern or image on a surface, by allowing the pigment to reach ...

ling. 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. The style maintained its supremacy briefly before other fashions came to the top in France. File:Etrurisches Zimmer.jpg, Etruscan room (1840), by Friedrich Wilhelm Klose, Pottsdam, Germany File:Frédéric-Eugène Piat - Cheminée monumentale de style néo-grec.JPG, Cheminée monumentale de style néo-grec (1862), Frédéric-Eugène Piat, Paris, France

In the United States

Frank Furness and furniture maker Daniel Pabst created Neo-Grec furniture for the city house of liquor baron Henry C. Gibson, circa 1870,George E. Thomas, et al., ''Frank Furness: The Complete Works'' (Princeton Architectural Press, 1991, revised 1996). and for the library of the architect's brother, Horace Howard Furness, circa 1871. They created paneling and furniture for the Manhattan city house of

Theodore Roosevelt Sr. Theodore Roosevelt Sr. (September 22, 1831 – February 9, 1878) was an American businessman and philanthropist from the Roosevelt family. Roosevelt was also the father of President Theodore Roosevelt and the paternal grandfather of First Lady E ...

, circa 1873. Pabst's Modern Gothic exhibition cabinet (circa 1877-80), now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, mixed Gothic detailing and exaggerated Corinthian capitals. File:Henry Gibson Drawing Room from Sheldon 1883-84.jpg, Drawing room of Henry Gibson ( 1870), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Neo-Grec center table is now in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts. File:RooseveltDiningroom.jpg, Dining room of Theodore Roosevelt Sr. ( 1873), Manhattan, New York City. The dining table is now in the collection of the

High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...

.Dining Table
from High Museum of Art. File:Pabst Neo-Grec Armchair profile.jpg, Neo-Grec armchair (1870–1875), attributed to Daniel Pabst, Philadelphia, private collection File:Cabinet MET DT180 cropped.jpg, Modern Gothic exhibition cabinet (1877–1880), attributed to Daniel Pabst, Philadelphia,

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Painting

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...

, the Neoclassical style continued to be taught in the French Academy des Beaux-Arts, inculcating crisp outlines, pellucid atmosphere, and a clear, clean palette. However, a formal Neo-Grec group of artists was created in the mid 19th century after growing interest in

Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...

and

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, and especially the later excavations at

. The

Paris Salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial ar ...

of 1847, an art exhibition, revealed the academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, who in '' The Cock Fight'' depicted a composition in which, in a scene 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. Gleyre himself adopted the tenets of neo-classicism more strictly than others at the time, adopting the classical style and aesthetic, but almost exclusively applying it to myths and motifs from antiquity, recalling both characters from Greek myth, and antique emblems such as bacchantes and putti. The Neo-Grec group took Gleyre's style and interests, but adapted it from use in history painting as in Gleyre's work, into

genre painting Genre painting (or petit genre), a form of genre art, depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity can be attache ...

. Because they were inspired by discoveries at Pompeii, they were also called ''néo-pompéiens''. The paintings of the Neo-Grecs sought to capture everyday, anecdotal trivialities of

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

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 Anacreon (; grc-gre, Ἀνακρέων ὁ Τήϊος; BC) was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in t ...

, 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". Most Neo-Grec paintings were also done in a horizontal layout as in a frieze decoration or Greek vases, with the composition simplified. The Neo-Grec school was criticized in many respects; for its attention to historical detail it was said by

Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited fro ...

"the scholarship is to disguise the absence of imagination", and 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—leading to the accusation that they were creating art that supported the ideologies of the ''

bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. Th ...

'', or comfortable middle class. The discovery in Pompeii also inspired history paintings based on the event, not necessarily strictly in a Neo-Grec style, such as ''

The Last Day of Pompeii ''The Last Day of Pompeii'' is a large history painting by Karl Bryullov produced in 1830–1833 on the subject of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. It is notable for its positioning between Neoclassicism, the predominant style in Russia a ...

'' by Karl Briullov. File:Jean-Léon Gérôme - Jeunes Grecs faisant battre des coqs, 1846.jpg, '' The Cock Fight'' by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1846 File:Hamon Jean-Louis-Old China Shop (Pompeii).jpg, ''The Old China Shop (Pompeii)'' by Jean-Louis Hamon, 1860. Hamon was one of the original members of the Neo-Grec group and one of the longest running adapters of the style. Here, Hamon specifically references Pompeii. File:Toulmouche Auguste-Maternal Love.jpg, ''Maternal Love'' by Auguste Toulmouche. Toulmouche often associated with the Neo-Grec group and many of his paintings, though not depicting antique subjects, adapted the style to a context that was contemporary, using subjects considered 'bourgeois' in reflecting the daily life of the French middle class.

Music

The Neo-Grec vogue even made its way into French

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

through the works of the composer

Erik Satie Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (, ; ; 17 May 18661 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but was an und ...

in a series of pieces called '' Gymnopédies'' – the title is a reference to dances performed by the youths of ancient

Sparta Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referr ...

in honour of Diana and

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

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 The ''Gnossiennes'' () are several piano compositions by the French composer Erik Satie in the late 19th century. The works are for the most part in free time (lacking time signatures or bar divisions) and highly experimental with form, rhythm an ...

'' go further in this direction; they use ancient Greek chromatic mode (A–G flat–F–E–D flat–C–B–A) and an

ornamentation.

References

;Notes

External links

Greek Revival - Buffalo Architecture and History
Neo-Grec features and examples from Buffalo

furniture gallery

Neo-grec roomset and links to wallpapers showing typical neo-grec patterns {{Authority control Neoclassical movements Revival architectural styles