Do you ever hear people refer to something as "classical art" or "classicism" and you're
wondering what exactly are you talking about?
In the last episode we talked about what art historians and academics generally refer to
as Classical Antiquity. If you haven’t seen it - please click here to watch, and there
will also be a link in the description. Have you seen it? Okay I'm gonna assume you've
watched it and now you're back. So now let's talk about classicism or a revival of classical traditions.
So the confusing thing is sometimes when people use the term “classism” - they're not
talking about the "original" Greco-Roman period from the ancient times. They are in fact talking
about a revival of that - which occurred roughly around the 15th and 16th centuries CE in Europe
- specifically Italy. Some of you may have heard this term called “the Renaissance”
- which literally means “rebirth.” A rebirth of what? A rebirth of the classical Greco-Roman
academic traditions of course!
So if you watched the last episode you'll remember we mentioned a guy named Vitruvius,
who wrote this famous book called the "Ten Books on Architecture" published in about
the 1st century BCE. Various copies of this book did survived throughout the ages. But
it didn't become widely circulated in Europe until around the 15th century. And thats because
the printing press wasn't invented until the 15th century. So It was first translated into
Italian in around the early 1400s and came into the hands of various people such as Brunelleschi,
Alberti, and Leonardo Da Vinci. You may have heard of some of these people. In fact, arguably,
Leonardo's most famous drawing - the Vitruvian man - is in fact based on Vitruvius' ideal
proportions of a human body.
While people like Leonardo and Brunelleschi are probably the most famous and most well
known. The most significant adopter of Vitruvian principals during the Renaissance was probably
Architect Andrea Palladio. While his architectural legacy is mostly composed of lesser known
residential projects such as the Villa Rotunda. It was once again his writings that made him
one of the most influential architectural thinkers in history. He famously authored
the "Four Books on Architecture". Yeah I know, architects are not the most creative when
it comes to book titles. These books, much of it inspired by Vitruvius, outlined things
like architectural orders, decorative styles, housing design, city planning, and urban design.
Long story short - these books basically became a "bible" for architects across the western
world, for generations.
Classical revival and the renaissance are also often associated with the movement Humanism,
which in a nutshell was a movement based on human idealism, virtue and individualism separate
from Christian religious doctrine. And these values of humanism were consistent with ancient
Greco-Roman thinking. Which is why in Renaissance painting and sculpture we also see this emphasis
on human anatomy, ideal proportions, ideal human figures, as well as references to ancient
Roman stories, Gods, and philosophers.
Now I know sometimes it seems like the Renaissance has just been one of these topics that feels
like it's just been talked about and studied to death. Yet it's still a very complex topic
to fully grasp, and there are many differences depending on the time period specifically
and depending on the place. But it's important to understand that the Renaissance isn't just
something that happened instantaneously. If you're interested I have an older video on
Gothic art - and I talk about how those styles in that period eventually, very very gradually
morphed into the Renaissance movement.
Anyway. Classicism definitely doesn't stop there. So let's revisit this topic next week
when we talk about Neoclassicism in the 18th and 19th centuries.
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