Classic, classical, classicism: these words suggest conflicting ideas and ideals, styles and epiphanies, neos and revivals. Many of us carry around our own intuitive sense of what classicism is; and some of us know what some others of us are referring to; but it is no insult to this complex of values and apprehensions to say that any exploration of classicism turns into an excursion in a house of mirrors. (Classicism has become romantic.) The classical achievement is the one in which the fractured images in the house of mirrors, for a moment, cohere. Which is not the certainty one hoped for.
“On Classic Ground,” the Tate Gallery’s exploration of the modern artist’s love affair with an idealistically archaic Mediterranean culture, found a strikingly contrasting setting in London, a city that remains a Dickensian panorama packed with all the world’s variegated physiognomies and types and destinies. To see the classicizing art of Picasso, Maillol, Matisse, Léger, Gris, Derain, Braque, de Chirico, and a host of others gathered together in the midst of a fast-paced modern metropolis is to feel how much this classical idea, with its elements of escapist fantasy, is born of urban sophistication and a sophisticated reaction against sophistication.
In 1921, André Gide was asked to comment on the idea of classicism for the journal La Renaissance.His observations–in the form, typical of Gide, of several brief notes, written at different times and commenting on one another–aim for simplicity and keep skirting paradox. “The
