At first glance, Neoclassicism and Romanticism couldn’t seem more different. One celebrates order, reason, and restraint; the other embraces emotion, imagination, and the untamed forces of nature. The styles are so divergent that it’s easy to assume they emerged from completely separate worlds. But, wildly, both evolved at roughly the same time. Although the Neoclassical period arrived slightly earlier, Romanticism evolved to provide a nearly opposite reaction to the same events. Rather than representing a simple progression from one style to the next, they show two competing visions of the world during the 18th and 19th centuries. By comparing them, we can better understand not only how artists painted, but also how they grappled with some of the biggest questions of their time.
