Neo-Grec

also: Néo-Grec · Néo-pompeiens

style movement c. 1848-1880 France United Kingdom

Néo-Grec was a mid-19th-century Neoclassical revival that flourished under Napoleon III, taking its spark from the resumed excavations at Pompeii. In architecture it loosened strict classicism into a 'readable' syntax of form - Henri Labrouste's Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (1843-50) is its classic monument - and the style spread to Victorian England and especially the United States through Richard Morris Hunt and Frank Furness. In the decorative arts it packed Greek vase motifs, anthemions, palmettes, and griffins into panels of Pompeian red, powder blue, and puce. In painting a formal Neo-Grec group - Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jean-Louis Hamon, and Henri-Pierre Picou, all pupils of Charles Gleyre - swapped history painting for whimsical, often sensual vignettes of everyday Greek life, arranged like friezes. Baudelaire mocked its scholarship, but its eclecticism made it a hallmark of Second Empire taste.

Grab von Bogumil Dawison im Alten Annenfriedhof in der Südvorstadt in Dresden
Grab von Bogumil Dawison im Alten Annenfriedhof in der Südvorstadt in DresdenPublic domain (credit: DP-1) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Polychrome schemes: black motifs and outlines on Pompeian red, powder blue, puce, and olive
  • Isolated Classical motifs - anthemions, palmettes, Greek key, griffins, urns, medallions - set within panels and borders
  • Dry, linear, precisely outlined rendering suited to stenciled repeating patterns
  • Eclectic mixing of Graeco-Roman, Pompeian, Adam, and Egyptian revival elements in one decor
  • Frieze-like horizontal compositions with simplified, shallow space
  • Anecdotal antiquity: whimsical, sensual scenes of everyday Greek and Roman life

Key figures

  • Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) — Painter whose Salon success The Cock Fight (1846) founded the Neo-Grec painters' group
  • Jean-Louis Hamon (1821-1874) — Neo-Grec painter of playful classical vignettes and designer at the Sèvres porcelain factory
  • Henri-Pierre Picou (1824-1895) — Neo-Grec painter and frescoist, the group's most fashionable painter at the close of the Second Empire
  • Charles Gleyre (1806-1874) — Swiss-born teacher in whose Paris atelier the Neo-Grec painters met
  • Henri Labrouste (1801-1875) — Architect of the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, the classic Neo-Grec building

Example works

Sources

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