Home Architecture Talk

Is there a difference between classicism, neoclassicism, and greek revival in architecture?

If so, what?

Public Comments

1. Classicism A confusing term, most often used as the antithesis of Romanticism and implying an adherence to certain fixed ideals or rules in art, as opposed to freedom of individual expression. For example, in the 19th century J. A. D. Ingres (1780–1867) was often upheld as the champion of Classicism in comparison to the arch-Romantic Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863). Neoclassicism Now understood to describe the classicizing style which evolved in European art of the later 18th and early 19th centuries in reaction to the florid sensuality of the Rococo. It embraced the fine and decorative arts and architecture. The term was actually devised later, in the 1880s, and was originally derogitory, denoting ‘pseudo-classical’, and particularly directed at Jacques-Louis David and his school. Neoclassicism is now seen to have achieved a purity of expression, however, and would have been referred to by its practitioners as the ‘true’ or ‘correct’ style. It was based on the study of antique art, which was to be imitated but not slavishly copied, and thus embody what were perceived to be the general and permanent principles of the visual arts as formulated by the ancients. Greek Revival An architectural style inspired by the architecture of classical Greece. It began in Europe, stimulated by the archaeological rediscovery of Greek architecture which gathered momentum from the early 18th century onwards. The style first manifested itself in mid-18th-century England in the Scottish architect James Stuart's garden buildings at Hagley Hall and Shugborough. By the turn of the century it was being widely adopted for urban planning schemes and new public buildings in both Europe and the United States. The Scottish capital city of Edinburgh took to the style so enthusiastically that it came to be known as the ‘Athens of the North’, exemplified by W. H. Playfair and C. R. Cockerell's unfinished National Monument astride Calton Hill, a conscious evocation of the Parthenon. It was Cockerell who is credited with the first use of the phrase ‘Greek Revival’ in a lecture he delivered in 1842 to the Royal Academy in his capacity as Professor of Architecture there.