The Latter Portion Of The Eighteenth Century And The Early Nineteenth Century.

The Cause Of The New Movement

HUMANITY loves variety. It may not weary of accustomed beauty but eventually it desires a change. The Romantic impulse as embodied in the Baroque and Rococo movements had endured for practically two centuries, had, for the time-being at least, exhausted its resources - and the world was ready for something new.

Humanity is also exceedingly curious, and the exhumations at Herculaneum and Pompeii excited the widest interest. Nowadays anything attracting like attention would be in the "movies" within a couple of weeks and on the picture post-cards the week after that: the public would be done with the sensation in a month and no lasting effect would have been made upon it. But in the eighteenth century these explorations into the past stimulated the publication of elaborate volumes, learned discussions, and personal investigations over a number of years and gave rise to a development affecting all Europe. For these remains were Classic, and now Classicism filled the air.

But, furthermore, it was also discovered that Classicism was much more than the masters of the Renaissance had taken it to be. They had extracted from it their inspiration in its heavier, more formal aspects, but the eighteenth century perceived that it also possessed a more human side than this, and that from its example might likewise be drawn a lighter mode of very great charm. Contrast the tremendous impressiveness of the great temple at Paestum with the slender white wooden pillars of an American Classic-Revival house and the extremes of which Classicism is capable will be realised.

Given the inspiration of an idea so entirely novel and stimulating, designers and craftsmen of the highest ability, a basis of straight-forward, satisfying, and solid form, with which lightness, grace, ease, and beauty are for the first time perceived to be entirely compatible, - and it is easily seen that, with a combination of elements never before existing, we shall now get, not perhaps the most virile and robust, but the most delightful furnishing the world has known.

The impulse was practically simultaneous in France and England, Southern Europe following in their train.