Empire

Empire (French empire – Empire from the Latin. Imperium – command, power) – artistic style, created in France at the beginning of the XIX century, in the era of the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte. The chronological framework of the original French “Empire Style” is limited to a very short period of time: from the end of the reign of the Directory (1799) or the year of Napoleon’s coronation (1804) to the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty (1815). The main elements of the Empire, gleaned from ancient art, were already contained in the classicism of Louis XVI (Neoclassicism) and were crystallized in the “Directory style”. However, Empire style is fundamentally different from Classicism. Continue reading →