Editing Classicism (section)

==General term==
[[File:Rome Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi 01.jpg|thumb|upright|''Fountain of the Four Rivers'', [[Bernini]], 1651.]]
[[File:Classicism door in Olomouc.jpg|thumb|upright|Classicist door in [[Olomouc]], The [[Czech Republic]].]]
Classicism is a specific genre of philosophy, expressing itself in literature, architecture, art, and music, which has Ancient Greek and Roman sources and an emphasis on [[society]]. It was particularly expressed in the [[Neoclassicism]]<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Johnson|first=James William|date=1969|title=What Was Neo-Classicism?|jstor=175167|journal=Journal of British Studies|volume=9|issue=1|pages=49–70|doi=10.1086/385580|s2cid=144293227 }}</ref> of the [[Age of Enlightenment]].

Classicism is a recurrent tendency in the [[Late Antique]] period, and had a major revival in [[Carolingian art|Carolingian]] and [[Ottonian art]]. There was another, more durable revival in the [[Italian Renaissance]] when the fall of [[Byzantium]] and rising trade with the Islamic cultures brought a flood of knowledge about, and from, the antiquity of [[Europe]]. Until that time, the identification with antiquity had been seen as a continuous history of [[Christendom]] from the conversion of Roman Emperor [[Constantine I]]. [[Renaissance]] classicism introduced a host of elements into European culture, including the application of mathematics and [[empiricism]] into art, [[humanism]], literary and depictive [[realism (arts)|realism]], and [[Formalism (philosophy)|formalism]]. Importantly it also introduced [[Polytheism]], or "[[paganism]]" {{non sequitur|date=January 2023 |reason= }}, and the juxtaposition of ancient and modern.

The classicism of the Renaissance led to, and gave way to, a different sense of what was "classical" in the 16th and 17th centuries. In this period, classicism took on more overtly structural overtones of orderliness, predictability, the use of geometry and grids, the importance of rigorous discipline and pedagogy, as well as the formation of schools of art and music. The court of Louis XIV was seen as the center of this form of classicism, with its references to the gods of [[Mount Olympus|Olympus]] as a symbolic prop for absolutism, its adherence to axiomatic and deductive reasoning, and its love of order and predictability.

This period sought the revival of classical art forms, including Greek drama and music. [[Opera]], in its modern European form, had its roots in attempts to recreate the combination of singing and dancing with theatre thought to be the Greek norm. Examples of this appeal to classicism included [[Dante]], Petrarch, and Shakespeare in [[poetry]] and [[theatre]]. Tudor drama, in particular, modeled itself after classical ideals and divided works into [[Tragedy]]<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bakogianni|first=Anastasia|date=2012|title=Theatre of the Condemned. Classical Tragedy on Greek Prison Islands by G. VAN STEEN|jstor=41722362|journal=The Journal of Hellenic Studies|volume=132|pages=294–296|title-link=Gonda Van Steen|doi=10.1017/S0075426912001140}}</ref> and [[Comedy]]. Studying [[Ancient Greek]] became regarded as essential for a well-rounded education in the [[liberal arts]].

The Renaissance also explicitly returned to architectural models and techniques associated with Greek and Roman antiquity, including the [[golden rectangle]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/golden-ratio-in-art-328435|title=History of the Golden Ratio in Art|last=Palmer|first=Lauren|date=2015-10-02|website=artnet News|language=en-US|access-date=2019-10-28}}</ref> as a key proportion for buildings, the classical orders of [[columns]], as well as a host of ornament and detail associated with Greek and Roman architecture. They also began reviving plastic arts such as [[bronze casting]] for sculpture, and used the classical naturalism as the foundation of [[drawing]], [[painting]] and sculpture.

The [[Age of Enlightenment]] identified itself with a vision of antiquity which, while continuous with the classicism of the previous century, was shaken by the [[physics]] of Sir [[Isaac Newton]], the improvements in machinery and measurement, and a sense of liberation which they saw as being present in the Greek civilization, particularly in its struggles against the Persian Empire. The ornate, organic, and complexly integrated forms of the [[baroque]] were to give way to a series of movements that regarded themselves expressly as "classical" or "[[Neoclassicism|neo-classical]]", or would rapidly be labelled as such. For example, the painting of [[Jacques-Louis David]] was seen as an attempt to return to formal balance, clarity, manliness, and vigor in art.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jldv/hd_jldv.htm|title=The Legacy of Jacques Louis David (1748–1825)|last=Galitz|first=Kathryn|date=October 2004|website=www.metmuseum.org|access-date=2019-10-28}}</ref>

The 19th century saw the classical age as being the precursor of academicism, including such movements as [[uniformitarianism]] in the sciences, and the creation of rigorous categories in artistic fields. Various movements of the Romantic period saw themselves as classical revolts against a prevailing trend of emotionalism and irregularity, for example the [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood|Pre-Raphaelites]].<ref>{{Cite journal|date=November 1943|title=JOURNAL ARTICLE The Pre-Raphaelites|jstor=4301128|journal=Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum|volume=10|issue=2|pages=62–63}}</ref> By this point, classicism was old enough that previous classical movements received revivals; for example, the Renaissance was seen as a means to combine the organic medieval with the orderly classical. The 19th century continued or extended many classical programs in the sciences, most notably the Newtonian program to account for the movement of energy between bodies by means of exchange of mechanical and thermal energy.

The 20th century saw a number of changes in the arts and sciences. Classicism was used both by those who rejected, or saw as temporary, transfigurations in the political, scientific, and social world and by those who embraced the changes as a means to overthrow the perceived weight of the 19th century. Thus, both pre-20th century disciplines were labelled "classical" and modern movements in art which saw themselves as aligned with light, space, sparseness of texture, and formal coherence.

In the present day [[philosophy]] classicism is used as a term particularly in relation to [[Apollonian]] over [[Dionysian]] impulses in society and art; that is a preference for rationality, or at least rationally guided catharsis, over [[Appearance emotionalism|emotionalism]].