Neo-Attic
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Neo Attic
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Neo-Attic or Atticizing is a sculptural style, beginning in
Archaic (6th century BC) periods.[1] It was first produced by a number of Neo-Attic workshops at Athens,[2]
which began to specialize in it, producing works for purchase by Roman connoisseurs, and was taken up in Rome, probably by Greek artisans.
The Neo-Attic mode, a reaction against the baroque extravagances of Hellenistic art,[3] was an early manifestation of Neoclassicism, which demonstrates how self-conscious the later Hellenistic art world had become. Neo-Attic style emphasises grace and charm, serenity and animation,[4] correctness of taste in adapting a reduced canon of prototypical figures and forms, in crisp and refined execution.
This style designation was introduced by the German classical
bas-reliefs
molded on decorative vessels and plaques, employing a figural and drapery style that looked for its canon of "classic" models to late fifth and early fourth-century Athens and Attica.
Notes
- ^ M. Bieber, The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age 2nd ed. (New York) 1961:182-86.
- ^ Several sculptors specifically identified themselves as Athenians in inscriptions: see W. Fuchs, Die Verbilder der neuattischen Reliefs (Berlin) 1959.
- ^ Compare the expressive violence and agony of Laocoön and His Sons.
- ^ Gisela Richter praised the serenity and animation of a neo-Attic marble vase, ca. first century BC-first century AD, purchased for the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Richter, "A Neo-Attic Marble Vase" The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 19.1 (January 1924:10-13), calling the phase "a period of good taste rather than creative ability" (p. 11).