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Neoclassicism

Europe turns back to Greece and Rome: clear line, calm figures and civic virtue.

109 works · hang 2430 ·

The rooms are imagined; every work on their walls is real.

Walk this roomRehang this room

First room, north wall

  1. This painting shows a man standing upright, his body slightly turned to the right. He has pale skin and curled white hair under a large black hat, and he wears a long brown jacket over a yellow vest with a white ruffled neck and a wide blue-and-white striped sash over his torso. His pants are black, and he wears tall black boots with brown tops. His hands are covered by yellow gloves, and he is holding a tall, thin rifle on the left, its bottom on the ground. Next to him on the right is a white dog with brown spots and large brown ears. The dog is sitting, looking up at the man. The background features an outdoor setting, with a landscape of hazy hills in shades of pale green and blue below a white and gray sky. There is a tall, dark green tree behind the man, and the ground he stands on is brown.
    Charles IV of Spain as HuntsmanUnrecorded Spanish maker, c. 1799/1800Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  2. Young Woman (possibly a Sex Worker) with a Man (recto); Young Woman Wringing Her Hands over a Man's Naked Body (verso), by Francisco Goya, 1796–97
    Young Woman (possibly a Sex Worker) with a Man (recto); Young Woman Wringing Her Hands over a Man's Naked Body (verso)Francisco Goya, 1796–97Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  3. Portrait of Don Juan Antonio Cuervo, by Francisco Goya, 1819
    Portrait of Don Juan Antonio CuervoFrancisco Goya, 1819Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  4. Painting of bearded, ruddy-faced man in eighteenth century style clothing.
    Portrait of a Man in CostumeJean Honoré Fragonard, c. 1767–68Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

First room, south wall

  1. Towering, pale, celery-green trees frame a view of a lush park with about a dozen elegantly dressed, light-skinned men and women in this vertical landscape painting. The color palette is dominated by moss and lemon-lime green, golden yellow, and spruce blue. The men all wear jackets with long tails over knee-breeches, and their long hair is pulled back at the napes of their necks. The women wear long dresses with full skirts and hints of lace at the sleeves and bust, and their brown or white hair is pulled up. Nine of the men and women gather to our right on a stone terrace along the bottom edge of the painting. A man in butter yellow kneels in front of a woman wearing rose pink. Around this pair, people stand, kneel, sit, or recline wearing aquamarine blue, light turquoise, or ivory white. A man and woman sit on a bench to our left, a little removed from the larger group. This woman wears ruby red and the man leaning toward her wears topaz blue. Two people in the park beyond these groups are painted with only a few strokes of pale blue and white paint, and they look over a low hedge row lining the walking path. Beds of red flowers fill the lower corners of the composition in front of a statue of a woman to our left and a person, perhaps on a fountain, to our right. The grassy walking path and trees become more blue as they fade into the hazy distance between the tall tress to either side. The sky fades from pale blue along the horizon to a silvery blue, almost white, at the top.
    A Game of Hot CocklesJean Honoré Fragonard, c. 1775/1780Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  2. The image shows a rustic scene with a house, trees, and a figure washing near a stream. Two children stand in the middle distance next to a ladder. In the background are two thatched houses among trees. The drawing style is detailed with fine lines and cross-hatching, creating texture. The color palette is monochromatic in shades of black and gray, emphasizing light and shadow.
    A Fisherman and Two Children in a Landscape with Thatched CottagesSalomon Gessner, 1764Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  3. Portrait of white man dressed in all black with medallion and sword.
    Amédée-David, the Comte de PastoretJean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1823–26Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Second room, south wall

  1. A work made of oil on canvas.
    Alexander at the Tomb of Cyrus the GreatPierre Henri de Valenciennes, 1796Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. A sliver of land across the bottom of this composition gives way to a procession of puffy gray and white clouds sweeping up across a vivid blue, panoramic sky in this horizontal landscape painting. An area of darker gray beyond the brown land could be a valley, mountain, or shadows from the billowing clouds. About one-fifth of the way up the composition, the horizon glows the faintest peach. The clouds trundle from our left up and to our right. The view is loosely painted, especially in the land.
    Study of Clouds over the Roman CampagnaPierre Henri de Valenciennes, c. 1782/1785Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  3. TROPHY WITH ECCLESIASTICAL OBJECTS
    Trophy with Ecclesiastical ObjectsRomolo Achille Liverani, 1830–1850Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Second room, north wall

  1. A young woman draws on an oval surface with white chalk while three winged, baby-like putti gather nearby, all on a bank of pale pink clouds in this horizontal painting. The woman and putti have pale, rosy skin, flushed cheeks, and hazel-brown eyes. To our left, the woman reclines with her upper body propped up on her far elbow, which rests on a steel-blue cushion as her legs stretch out to our right. Her light brown hair is braided and wrapped across the top of her head. She wears a loose, seafoam-green robe over a billowing ivory-white garment that has slipped off the shoulder closer to us. A round paint palette with brushes sticking out of its thumb hole and a roll of blue and white paper sit in the lower left corner, behind the woman. The woman and the objects are on a red cloth. In front of the woman is a rounded surface, perhaps a canvas, on which she draws. She holds up a gold-colored stylus with her right hand, closer to us, with a pointed piece of white chalk in one end and black chalk in the other. The canvas is taller than her head, so the child-like putto she draws on it is life-sized. The three nude putti on the far side of the canvas have copper or golden-blond, curly hair, flushed, rounded cheeks, short wings in white or peacock blue, pudgy torsos, and dimpled limbs. One putto, presumably the one the woman draws, sits back on the bank of clouds with a carnation-pink sash across his chest. He pulls his chin back and looks at her from under his eyebrows. He holds a gold-colored torch with a pink flame in one hand, and the other hand rests near a cylindrical quiver of arrows. Another putto peeks around the side of the canvas, and the third stands and props the canvas up. That third putto holds up a wreath of laurel leaves up over the canvas, above the woman’s drawing hand. The bank of clouds is parchment-brown with muted pink and blue highlights against a vivid blue sky. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “F Boucher – 1765.”
    Allegory of PaintingFrançois Boucher, 1765Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  2. A work made of pen and brown ink and black ink wash, with brown ink wash, on blued-white laid paper.
    Odysseus, at the Doors of Hades, Meets the Shades of Tiresias and AnticleaJohann Heinrich Lips, 1785Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  3. The Artist in His Room at the Villa Medici, Rome, by Léon Cogniet, 1817
    The Artist in His Room at the Villa Medici, RomeLéon Cogniet, 1817Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art

Third room, north wall

  1. The Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of his Sons, by Jacques-Louis David, 1787
    The Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of his SonsJacques-Louis David, 1787Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  2. A woman wearing flowing, pastel-colored robes and two, winged, child-like putti gather on a bank of clouds among musical instruments and sheet music in this horizontal painting. The people all have pale, pink-tinged skin. The woman sits to our right of center, facing our left in profile. She has straight nose, a rounded chin, and her small, pink lips are closed. Her ash-blond hair is pulled back under a yellow band. A voluminous white robe falls away over her left shoulder, to our right, to reveal a firm breast and small pink nipple. Sky-blue drapery wraps over her far arm, and deep rose-pink cloth falls across her lap and onto the clouds around her. Her legs extend to our left, her toes pointed. She leans back on her left elbow, closer to us, and points with that index finger to a lyre she props against her knee with her other hand. One chubby, nude putto reaches forward to strum the strings. The other putto hovers above, holding a ring of laurel leaves up in one hand and a flute in the other. Both putti have chubby limbs and torsos, blond curls lifted as if in a breeze, and short, ice-blue wings. Both look at the woman. In the lower left corner, a helmet with a topaz-blue feather and the gold hilt of a sword sit near the woman’s feet. Beneath the woman’s lower leg, at the bottom center of the painting, is a gold horn encircled by another wreath of laurel leaves. Two white doves with wings spread support an open book of sheet music and two pink roses tucked under the woman’s bent elbow. Fog-gray clouds billow up both sides of the scene against a pale blue sky. The clouds on which the trio gathers are parchment brown shaded with mauve pink. The outer corners of the image are white, indicating that the corners of the canvas were rounded. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “F Boucher 1764.”
    Allegory of MusicFrançois Boucher, 1764Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  3. Overdoor Painting, by Pierre Rousseau, 1790s
    Overdoor PaintingPierre Rousseau, 1790sCourtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art