Neoclassicism (painting) is the late-18th-century revival of classical greco-roman ideals in painting — austere, civic, morally instructive.
Neoclassical painting emerged in the late 18th century as a deliberate return to the formal clarity, idealised figures, and moral seriousness associated with ancient Greek and Roman art. The movement was triggered by the rediscovery of Pompeii (excavations from 1748) and Herculaneum, by the influential writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and by Enlightenment hostility to what was seen as Rococo frivolity. In Rome, Anton Raphael Mengs and Angelica Kauffman painted in a clean, didactic mode. In France, Jacques-Louis David's 'Oath of the Horatii' (1784) became the iconic Neoclassical painting: three brothers swear their lives to Rome in an austere geometric composition that was read as a republican manifesto on the eve of the Revolution. David later painted 'The Death of Marat' (1793) and served as Napoleon's official painter. His pupil Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres extended Neoclassical line into the 19th century with portraits of breathtaking precision. Neoclassicism shaped not only painting but also sculpture (Canova, Thorvaldsen), architecture, and the entire aesthetic of the early American republic.