Many of the French (especially David's followers) caught 'Roman Fever' after the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 1738. This, along with a general rejection of the frilly Rococo style, persuaded the French to create cleaner, simpler paintings with no visible brushstrokes and a rational, morally-uplifting tone.

Jacques-Louis David was the dominant figure of this movement, but after the death of some of his revolutionary friends, he became the head of Napoleon's art program. Ingres was a student of David's, but chose a more "Classical" approach to his art.

• Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784.
• Jacques-Louis David, Death of Marat, 1793.
• Jean-Auguste Dominque Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814.

In the 1600s, England was shifting power as Parliament gained control, and King Charles I lost his head. Since religious art was forbidden in Puritan churches, English art was limited mostly to portraits. However, during the mid-1700s it produced three of its best-known portraitists during this time: Hogarth, Gainsborough and Reynolds.

William Hogarth - believed in painting people as they were (which limited his business), so he developed the idea of satire / political cartoons.
Hogarth, The Marriage Contract, 1743.

Thomas Gainsborough - portraitist who loved landscapes and van Dyck's method of elongating figures. Portraits had people in contemporary dress and natural landscape backgrounds.
Gainsborough, Mr. & Mrs. Andrews, 1750.

Sir Joshua Reynolds - loved the Classical Roman style, and painted sitters as goddesses and saints, with Classical columns drapery or pedestals in the picture.
Reynolds, Portrait Of Richard Peers Symons, 1770.
(**This one's at the Cincinnati Art Museum.)

The founding of the American republic coincided with the popularity of Neoclassicism. Since the ancient Roman Republic seemed an appropriate model, the new country adopted Roman words like 'Senate' and 'Capitol' while Washington (the new capital) was modeled after Neoclassical buildings. This had much to do with Thomas Jefferson and his influence of French Neoclassicism.

• John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Paul Revere, c1768-70.
• Gilbert Stuart, Portrait of George Washington, 1796.
• Benjamin West (first American-born painter to win International acclaim, but spent entire career working in London), The Death of General Wolfe, 1770.