Neo-Attic or Atticizing is a sculptural style, beginning in
Hellenistic sculpture and vase-painting of the 2nd century BC and climaxing in
Roman art
The art of Ancient Rome, and the territories of its Republic and later Empire, includes architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work. Luxury objects in metal-work, gem engraving, ivory carvings, and glass are sometimes considered to be mi ...
of the 2nd century AD, copying, adapting or closely following the style shown in reliefs and statues of the
Classical (5th–4th centuries BC) and
Archaic
Archaic is a period of time preceding a designated classical period, or something from an older period of time that is also not found or used currently:
*List of archaeological periods
**Archaic Sumerian language, spoken between 31st - 26th cent ...
(6th century BC) periods. It was first produced by a number of Neo-Attic workshops at
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh List ...
, 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, 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,
[ 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
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 100 ...
(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). correctness of taste in adapting a reduced canon of prototypical figures and forms, in crisp, tamed and refined execution.
This style designation was introduced by the German classical
archaeologist and
art historian Friedrich Hauser (1859-1917), in ''Die Neuattischen Reliefs'' (Stuttgart: Verlag von Konrad Wittwer, 1889). The corpus that Hauser called "Neo-Attic" consists of
bas-relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
s 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
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Hellenistic art
Art of ancient Attica