Steidl Comte

Neoclassic
2021 

This book is Michel Comte’s personal analysis of the neoclassical style. Employing an eclectic approach including original photos, reproductions of neoclassical treasures, and reworked images of masterpieces such as Michelangelo’s Pietà and Jacques-Louis David’s The Coronation of Napoleon, Comte traces the classical aesthetic and its rebirth as the neoclassic throughout the ages. From the Parthenon to Gianni Versace’s designs, from Bernini to Albert Speer’s Reich Chancellery, the style has persisted and transformed itself again and again, as empires rose and fell around it. In Comte’s

words, the neoclassic demonstrates a “dream of perfection,” one we are seduced by even as we know its danger: “History tells us that ‘grandeur’ is destined to fail.”

Beauty remains. Michel Comte


Text by Michel Comte
Book design by Jens Remes 80 pages
9.4 × 11.8 in. / 24 × 30 cm

Vol. 1
120 pages
35 black-and-white and 110 color photographs

Vol. 2
120 pages
30 black-and-white and 100 color photographs

Four-color process
Two softcovers in a slipcase

€ 95.00 / £ 85.00 / US$ 125.00

ISBN 978-3-95829-751-7