Neoclassicism

It is the mid-18th century, and beneath the ash of Vesuvius lie two Roman towns. Herculaneum and Pompeii are being excavated, lavish volumes of the finds spread across Europe, and the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann praises the "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur" of Greek art. Suddenly the Rococo feels overdone.

The new style first takes Rome as its model. The Panthéon in Paris is built in 1758–1790, and in Berlin Carl Gotthard Langhans raises the Brandenburg Gate in 1791. Around 1800 a second wave arrives as knowledge of the Greek temples grows – the Greek Revival. Karl Friedrich Schinkel's Altes Museum in Berlin is finished in 1830, and in London the British Museum is built in 1823–1847. Across the Atlantic the style becomes the language of the young republic, from the Capitol in Washington to Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda at the University of Virginia, 1826.

In Sweden, Neoclassicism becomes the Gustavian style. The Stock Exchange Building on Stortorget, designed by Erik Palmstedt and built in 1773–1778, is one of the earliest Swedish examples. In the first decades of the 19th century a heavier Empire style takes over – in Sweden the Karl Johan style.

Gustavian. The Swedish version of the same movement – usually smaller in scale, with lighter, more graceful details. Palladian. Older: Palladio's 16th-century villas founded a tradition of their own in England before Neoclassicism.