Abstract/Summary

This essay explores the desire for a new Renaissance, a new revival of ancient Greek ideas, values, and institutions, that marked English and French national cultures in the second half of the nineteenth century, and its impact on English and French painting and sculpture. The essay shows, first, the emergence of a ‘new Hellenism’ in art and life, that responded to European exposure to fifth-century BC Greek figural sculpture, that had not been seen before; and second, the attempt to weave into a modern culture Mediaeval Christian or ‘Gothic’ and ancient Greek ideas and values. The essay considers the ways in which modern Western culture was built on re-interpretation, revival, and reconciliation of its two core, canonical traditions, and recognition of its Jewish heritage. These traditions combined were seen as the means to human self-realisation – pathways to achieving a complete ideal of man. They articulated a new Humanism that was universal in scope and would become the desire of all nations. Filtered through modern aspirations, the ‘new Hellenism’ offered a model of reasoning, and of physical health and beauty for the many; while Christian morality, with its roots in the Hebrew Bible, was re-affirmed as the epitome of human fellow feeling. The ‘new Hellenism’, either on its own, or in combination with Gothicism or ‘Hebraism’, would define the path along which new Renaissances would be sought in England and France. The essay examines how leading academic and avant-garde artists in England and France, including Leighton, Poynter, Burne-Jones, Cézanne and Renoir, engaged with the ‘new Hellenism’ and desire for national rebirth and artistic innovation, in emulation of the original, Italian Renaissance.