The Definition of Classical

Antoine Coypel, detail from the ceiling of the Royal Chapel, Versailles, 1716

"Le dessein elegant de l'antique sculpture, Joint aux effets naifs que fournit la nature" - Antoine Coypel

The above quotation was brought to my attention by Susanna Caviglia in her essay "Roccoco Classicisms" that accompanied the 2017 "Classicisms" exhibit at the Smart Museum. ( I discuss that exhibit here )

As the catalog pointed out,  "Classical art" deserves scare quotes because it has been far from a singularity.   The term itself did not appear until after 1810 - a century after Coypel had  died.

But since I use it prescriptively , that is exactly how I would define the profession of Classical art. Like any language,  it stands upon a foundation of tradition. But in a way that defines the Greco-Roman-Western European tradition, it attempts to naively engage with nature.

In the visual arts -- that engagement is called life drawing.

In the same catalog, Rebecca Zorach offers a similar formulation:  "In Vasari's account of the relationship between Masaccio and Masolino working on the Brancacci Chapel,  or the competition of Brunelleschi and Ghiberti over the Florentine Baptistery doors, the classical constitutes itself as a matter of volumetric and ordered forms freely inspired by Greco-roman sculpture yet naturalistically animated" (note: Vasari wrote that Masaccio "gave a beginning to beautiful attitudes, movements, liveliness, and vivacity, and to a certain relief truly characteristic and natural; which no painter up to his time had ever done")

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I  admire the detail shown at the top of this post - but unfortunately, Coypel (1661-1722)  cannot survive comparison with his incredible contemporary,  Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770).  Online, most of Coypel's work looks like it was done by a Disney cartoonist.