ABSTRACT
The eighteenth century is full of contradictions. It is not only that its philosophical attitude wavers between rationalism and antirationalism, but its artistic aims are also dominated by two 122 opposite tendencies and at some times approach a strictly classicistic, at others a more unrestrained pictorial conception. And like the rationalism of the period, its classicism is also difficult to define and open to various sociological interpretations, since it is sustained alternately by courtlyaristocratic and middle-class strata of society and ends by developing into the representative artistic style of the revolutionary bourgeoisie. The fact that David’s painting becomes the official art of the Revolution only seems strange or even inexplicable, if one conceives the concept of classicism too narrowly and restricts it to the artistic aims of the upper, conservatively-minded classes. Classicistic art certainly tends towards conservatism and is well suited to represent authoritarian ideologies, but the aristocratic outlook often finds more direct expression in the sensualistic and exuberant baroque than in abstemious and matter-of-fact classicism. The rationalistically-minded, moderate and disciplined middle class, on the other hand, often favours the simple, clear, uncomplicated forms of classicistic art and is no more attracted by the indiscriminate and shapeless imitation of nature than by the whimsical imaginative art of the aristocracy. Its naturalism moves in most cases within relatively narrow limits and is usually restricted to the rationalistic portrayal of reality, that is to say, of a reality without internal contradictions. Naturalness and formal discipline are almost one and the same thing here. It is only in the classicism of the aristocracy that the bourgeois principle of order becomes transformed into a strict conformity to rigid norms, its
striving for simplicity and economy into coercion and subordination, and its healthy logic into a cool intellectualism. In Greek classicism or in that of Giotto, fidelity to nature is never felt to be incompatible with formal concentration; it is only in the art of the court aristocracy that form holds sway at the expense of naturalness, and only here that it is regarded as a limitation and a barrier. But, intrinsically, classicism no more represents an expansive, naturalistic tendency than a typical bourgeois outlook,133 although it often begins as a bourgeois movement and derives its formal principles from conformity to nature. It extends, however, beyond both the frontiers of the bourgeois view of art and the presuppositions of naturalism. The art of Racine and 123 Claude Lorrain is classicistic without being either bourgeois or naturalistic.
