Empire (style)

The Empire style, French pronunciation: ​[ɑ̃.piːʁ], the second phase of Romanticism, is an early-nineteenth-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts that flourished between 1800 and 1815 during the Consulate and the First French Empire periods, although its life span lasted until the late 1820s (or more in some countries). From France it spread into much of Europe and the United States.

The style originated in and takes its name from the rule of Napoleon I in the First French Empire, when it was intended to idealize Napoleon's leadership and the French state. The style corresponds in that intent to the Biedermeier style in the German-speaking lands, Federal style in the United States, and the Regency style in Britain. The previous style in France was called Louis XVI style.

The style developed and elaborated the Directoire style of the immediately preceding period, which aimed at a simpler, but still elegant evocation of the virtues of the Ancient Roman Republic:

The stoic virtues of Republican Rome were upheld as standards not merely for the arts but also for political behaviour and private morality. Conventionels saw themselves as antique heroes. Children were named after Brutus, Solon and Lycurgus. The festivals of the Revolution were staged by David as antique rituals. Even the chairs in which the committee of Salut Publique sat were made on antique models devised by David. ...In fact Neo-classicism became fashionable.

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