Neo-Attic orAtticizing is a sculptural style, beginning inHellenistic sculpture and vase-painting of the 2nd century BC and climaxing inRoman art of the 2nd century AD, copying, adapting or closely following the style shown in reliefs and statues of theClassical (5th–4th centuries BC) andArchaic (6th century BC) periods.[1] It was first produced by a number of Neo-Attic workshops atAthens,[2] which began to specialize in it, producing works for purchase by Roman connoisseurs, and was taken up in Rome, probably by Greek artisans.
The Neo-Attic mode, a reaction against the baroque extravagances of Hellenistic art,[3] was an early manifestation ofNeoclassicism, which demonstrates how self-conscious the later Hellenistic art world had become. Neo-Attic style emphasises grace and charm, serenity and animation,[4] correctness of taste in adapting a reduced canon of prototypical figures and forms, in crisp and refined execution.
This style designation was introduced by the German classicalarchaeologist andart historianFriedrich Hauser (1859-1917), inDie Neuattischen Reliefs (Stuttgart: Verlag von Konrad Wittwer, 1889). The corpus that Hauser called "Neo-Attic" consists ofbas-reliefs molded on decorative vessels and plaques, employing a figural and drapery style that looked for its canon of "classic" models to late fifth and early fourth-century Athens and Attica.