Neoclassical & Romantic

From about 1780 to 1850, the age of the American and French revolutions and of Napoleon, art split into two answers to a world in upheaval. Neoclassicism looked to Rome and Greece for civic virtue: David's Oath of the Horatii, with its hard outlines and frozen gestures, Canova's polished marble, Ingres's flawless line. Romanticism looked inward and outward, to feeling, nature and the sublime: Goya's nightmares, Géricault's shipwreck, Delacroix's barricades, Friedrich's lone figures before endless seas and mountains, Turner's storms of light. In Russia the same years produced Bryullov's Last Day of Pompeii and Kiprensky's portraits.

What to look for: sharp contours, calm poses and classical settings (Neoclassicism) against rich colour, loose brushwork, wild nature and strong emotion (Romanticism).

11,277 works in the quiz. Play a round on Neoclassical & Romantic.

Artists

William Blake · Francisco Goya · J. M. W. Turner · Katsushika Hokusai · Caspar David Friedrich · Jacques-Louis David · Gustave Doré · Ivan Aivazovsky · Dante Gabriel Rossetti · Samuel Finley Breese Morse · Eugène Delacroix · Taras Shevchenko · William-Adolphe Bouguereau · John Everett Millais · Gustave Courbet · John James Audubon · Branwell Brontë · John Constable · Jean-Léon Gérôme · E. T. A. Hoffmann · John Martin · Augustus Pugin · Utagawa Hiroshige · Thomas Gainsborough · Alexandre Cabanel · Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun · Thomas Cole · Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres · John Trumbull · Joshua Reynolds

Best-known works

“Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” — Caspar David Friedrich, 1818
“Liberty Leading the People” — Eugène Delacroix, 1830
“The Raft of the Medusa” — Théodore Géricault, 1819
“The Death of Marat” — Jacques-Louis David, 1793
“Saturn Devouring His Son” — Francisco Goya, 1819
“The Last Day of Pompeii” — Karl Bryullov, 1833
“Fallen angel” — Alexandre Cabanel, 1847
“The Great Wave off Kanagawa” — Katsushika Hokusai, 1830–1833
“Grande Odalisque” — Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1814
“The Third of May 1808” — Francisco Goya, 1814
“The Oath of the Horatii” — Jacques-Louis David, 1784
“The Nightmare” — Henry Fuseli, 1781
“The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” — Paul Delaroche, 1833
“The Fighting Temeraire” — J. M. W. Turner, 1839
“Napoleon Crossing the Alps” — Jacques-Louis David, 1801
“The Monk by the Sea” — Caspar David Friedrich, 1808
“The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife” — Katsushika Hokusai, 1820
“The Coronation of Napoleon” — Jacques-Louis David, 1807
“The Massacre at Chios” — Eugène Delacroix, 1824
“The Ancient of Days” — William Blake, 1794
“Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway” — J. M. W. Turner, 1843
“Declaration of Independence” — John Trumbull, 1810
“A Burial at Ornans” — Gustave Courbet, 1849–1850
“The Hay Wain” — John Constable, 1821
“The Clothed Maja” — Francisco Goya, 1800
“The Sea of Ice” — Caspar David Friedrich, 1823
“Lion Monument” — Bertel Thorvaldsen, 1821
“Bonaparte at the Pont d'Arcole” — Antoine-Jean Gros, 1796
“The Death of Socrates” — Jacques-Louis David, 1787
“Marie Antoinette with a Rose” — Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, 1783