Un néoclassicisme de l’ombre : les nocturnes d’Alessandro Verri

International audienceNeoclassicism is sometimes summed up as an aspiration towards regularity of lines and clarity of figure, as if it were based solely on an equivalence between light and beauty. Yet, far from fleeing or fearing the shadows, European neoclassicism, rich in variants and contradictions, has confronted them and, in some cases, has welcomed them into its figurative system. The revaluation of night is of interest to many artists and writers for whom darkness is a matrix endowed with a creative function. From Piranesi to Hubert Robert, the depths of Rome, its underground passages and catacombs, stimulate the poetic and artistic imagination.In Italy, Alessandro Verri was able to combine the cult of classical beauty and a night scenography in his novels Le Avventure di Saffo (1782) and Le Notti romane (1792-1804). His writing was nurtured by the advance of Antiquarian culture of his time and influenced by Catholic apologetic. It hybridizes images and motifs in the contention that certain truths long forgotten by the worshippers of reason and clarity can only emerge through the contemplation of darkness. This essay attempts to draw the contours of Verri’s experimental neoclassicism in his mature works and to place it in the context of the development of literature and the fine arts in Italy and Europe at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries