# Neoclassicism (新古典主義)

> A movement that turned back to ancient simplicity, prompted by the excavations at Pompeii and reacting against the decorative excess of Rococo. Contours are hard, color is held down, and the subjects preach civic virtue. States of the revolutionary period chose this style as their own face.

- IndexStyle No.494 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/neoclassicism
- Kind: Style · Family: Historical Styles · Era: 1760s–1830s
- Mood: Trust, Luxury, Calm
- Color cues: #e9e6dd / #67635d / #171615 (cues taken from reference works, not a fixed palette)

## Defining characteristics

- Hard, clear contour lines
- A restrained number of colors
- Ancient subjects and dress
- Shallow, stage like space

## Best used for

- Showing public purpose and discipline by cutting ornament away
- Making a scene that borrows historical legitimacy

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Inscriptional capitals, letterspaced wide.
- Layout & structure: Let the horizontal work hard and place elements symmetrically.
- Material & texture: The white of stone and plaster, with gold kept to key points.

## What to avoid

Do not mistake simplicity for dullness. Hard contour and tense composition are both required at once.

## Application checklist

Before calling a piece an application of this style, check it against the defining characteristics:

- [ ] Hard, clear contour lines
- [ ] A restrained number of colors
- [ ] Ancient subjects and dress
- [ ] Shallow, stage like space
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Renaissance (ルネサンス)** — A movement that rediscovered ancient proportion and the human body and fixed three dimensions on a flat surface through linear perspective. Mathematics became the common language of painting and architecture, and the norms of the next five hundred years, symmetry, the classical orders and the golden ratio, were established here. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/renaissance
- **Stripped Classicism (ストリップト・クラシシズム)** — The manner of government and memorial building in which classical architecture is shorn of ornament, leaving only proportion, axis and the rhythm of the columns. That it still reads as classical without ornament made it a cheap means of speaking authority. Important as a case in which the minimal and the intimidating live together. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/stripped-classicism

## Further study

- The excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii
- Winckelmann's history of ancient art
- Its adoption as a state style in revolutionary France

## Reference works

- ジャック＝ルイ・ダヴィッド《ホラティウス兄弟の誓い》1784 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jacques-Louis%20David%20-%20Oath%20of%20the%20Horatii.jpg
- アントニオ・カノーヴァ《アモルの接吻で蘇るプシュケ》1793 大理石 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antonio%20Canova%20-%20Psyche%20revived%20by%20the%20kiss%20of%20Love%2C%20Marble%2C%201793.jpg
- パリ マドレーヌ寺院 1807年着工 正面 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris%20%C3%89glise%20de%20la%20Madeleine%20facade%2001a%20frontal.jpg

## Source of record

- Tate — Art Terms: Neoclassicism — https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/n/neoclassicism

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/neoclassicism
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/neoclassicism/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compose_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)

## 日本語

ロココの装飾過多への反動として、ポンペイ発掘に触発され古代の簡素さへ戻った運動。輪郭は硬く、色は抑えられ、主題は市民の徳を説く。革命期の国家がこの様式を自らの顔に選んだ。

特徴: 硬く明快な輪郭線／抑制された色数／古代の主題と衣装／浅い舞台のような空間
注意: 簡素さを退屈と取り違えない。輪郭の硬さと構図の緊張が同時に要る。