From 1775 to 1815, the French Revolution transformed Western society.  This chapter surveys the course of the Revolution and discusses developments in the arts during that period.

The French Revolution sought to realize the progressive ideals of the philosophes.  Inspired by the example of the American Revolution, French reformers hoped to replace the monarchy with a representative government based on Enlightenment principles.  The social inequities and financial disorder of the Old Regime gave the reformers fertile ground.  The procedural crisis in the Estates General and the Bastille uprising prompted the Third Estate to proclaim itself the National Assembly, abolish aristocratic privilege, and establish a limited bourgeois democracy.  Undermined by a conservative reaction, the moderates lost power to radicals who abolished the monarchy and executed the king and queen.  Beset by internal and external crises, the new National Convention granted full executive power to the Committee of Public Safety.  Led by Robespierre, the Committee mobilized the nation's resources to repel foreign invaders and executed thousands deemed enemies of the state.  After Robespierre's fall, the radical republic crumbled, and power passed to the moderate, ineffectual Directory.  Unable to quell internal unrest, the Directory itself fell to Napoleon's military coup.

Building on his reputation as a general, Napoleon assumed greater powers, ultimately proclaiming himself Emperor.  Although he preserved many revolutionary gains, he introduced conservative measures, including the restoration of colonial slavery and the formation of a legal code that denied equal rights to workers, women, and children.  His military campaigns spread revolutionary ideals and institutions through most of Europe, but his repressive rule betrayed those ideals.  Further, his aggressive ambition stretched French resources beyond their limit.  His final defeat at Waterloo returned the monarchy to power.

The French Revolution left a mixed legacy.  It gave practical expression to Enlightenment ideals, and Napoleon so entrenched them that European monarchs could never fully restore the Old Regime.  However, the Revolution also released the destructive forces of modern nationalism and total war.  As Edmund Burke predicted, the revolutionaries embraced an ideological extremism that prompted them to destroy all tradition and impose a new social order by force.

During this period, Neoclassicism became the style of republicanism.  Initially, Vigée-Lebrun put Neoclassicism at the service of the monarchy, portraying Marie Antoinette as a benevolent maternal figure.  However, David fused Neoclassical values with revolutionary ideals through works that glorified heroes of the classical past and revolutionary present in a style that involved cool colors, simple balanced compositions, and dramatic tenebrism.  Ingres carried nonpolitical Neoclassicism into the post-revolutionary period, opposing it to Romanticism despite his own attraction to romantic themes such as eastern odalisques.  Houdon brought republican Neoclassicism to sculpture through portraits glorifying American revolutionary leaders, while Canova put Neoclassical aesthetics at the service of Napoleon's regime.  In the United States, the  Federal style, exemplified by the Capitol and Jefferson's Monticello, decisively identified Neoclassicism with American republican values.  Never a Neoclassicist, Goya explored his personal hopes and despairs, indulged his taste for the macabre and protested the brutal French occupation of Spain, all through a dark, dramatic style that anticipated Romanticism.

Just as the development of Neoclassical art paralleled the course of the French Revolution, the evolution of Classical music mirrored the demise of royal absolutism.  Although aristocratic patrons continued to commission music, composers began to look beyond the dying patronage system for other sources of support.  To satisfy the tastes of aristocratic and bourgeois audiences alike, composers cultivated a style that they believed reflected the aesthetic values of Classical Greece.  To convey this style, composers formalized several genres of music, most notably the sonata, which became the formal basis of the Classical symphony, concerto, and string quartet.

The major practitioners of this style were Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.  A specialist in symphonic music, Haydn helped establish the conventions of modern orchestral performance.  Although he composed memorably in many forms, his best-known works are the London Symphonies and his choral pieces which show both his indebtedness to Handel and his predilection for the symphony.  The most versatile of Classical composers, Mozart mastered virtually every type of music.  His most important contribution was his synthesis of the German and Italian traditions, blending the complex counterpoint and pensive moods of J. S. Bach with the lighter elements of Italian opera.  Mozart also perfected the quintet form, refined the piano concerto, and broke operatic ground that Wagner would fully cultivate in the nineteenth century.  Beethoven's music built the bridge between the Classical and Romantic styles.   After absorbing the influence of Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven pioneered techniques for evoking emotion through music.  Best known for his symphonies, Beethoven also composed important solo, ensemble, orchestral, and vocal pieces.  As his career proceeded, his works became increasingly long, complex, and daring, an evolution that culminated with his Ninth Symphony which included a vocal setting in the final movement.

As historical terms, "Classical" and "Neoclassical" refer to the aesthetic that prevailed during the period of the Enlightenment and French Revolution.  As artistic terms, they designate different characteristics when applied to each of the arts.  However, despite these differences, classicists in all the arts accepted that artistic creation was bound by time-honored rules that were as natural as the laws which governed the physical universe.  By the end of the eighteenth century, this assumption was being challenged by Romanticism, which extolled passion and spontaneity over proportion and restraint.