,
Le Bain Turc (The Turkish bath), 1862, oil on canvas, 108 × 110 cm,
Louvre, Paris Figurative art is itself based upon a tacit understanding of abstracted shapes: the figure sculpture of
Greek antiquity was not
naturalistic, for its forms were idealized and
geometric.
Ernst Gombrich referred to the strictures of this schematic imagery, the adherence to that which was already known, rather than that which is seen, as the "Egyptian method", an allusion to the memory-based clarity of imagery in
Egyptian art. Eventually idealization gave way to observation, and a figurative art which balanced ideal geometry with greater realism was seen in
Classical sculpture by 480 B.C. It introduced the female nude as subject and started a long line of famous paintings.
Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), a French
painter in the
classical style whose work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color, served as an alternative to the more narrative
Baroque style of the 17th century. He was a major inspiration for such classically oriented artists as
Jacques-Louis David,
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and
Paul Cézanne. The rise of the
Neoclassical art of Jacques-Louis David ultimately engendered the
realistic reactions of
Gustave Courbet and
Édouard Manet leading to the multi-faceted figurative art of the 20th century. In November, 2018, scientists reported the discovery of the oldest known figurative art painting, over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old, of an unknown animal, in the cave of
Lubang Jeriji Saléh on the
Indonesian island of
Borneo. ==Architecture, townscape==