Romanticism

Focus Question

• How were late 18th and 19th century art movements

(Neo-Classicism and Romanticism) a reaction to

recent events/developments (Enlightenment, French

Revolution)?

Romanticism: Characteristics

• Unrestrained exuberance, imagination, spontaneity

• Focus on the wonder of nature and emotion

• Reaction against Neoclassicism and the Enlightenment

– Neoclassicism

• Rules and standards for creating art, music, literature

• Tried to emulate the ancient Greeks who had perfected the rules

– Enlightenment

• Rules and natural laws of logic

• thoughtful, processed

Romanticism: Characteristics

• Human intuition, imagination, & emotions are valid

sources of knowledge

• Individualism interest in unique traits of people

• Like Neoclassicism, admired heroism

• Attraction to the bizarre and unusual

Classical Art

Nicolas Poussin

Jacques-Louis David

Neo-Classical

Art: Classical into Romantic

Gericault “Raft of the Medusa”

Gericault “Raft of the Medusa”

Differences?

They are slight

Romantic Art

Eugene Delacroix

• Often considered greatest of

Romantic painters

• Dramatic scenes that stirred

emotions

• Exotic subjects

• Revolutionary subjects against

oppression

Liberty leading the people.

The Algerian Apartment

“Massacre at

Chios”Greece v. Ottomans

John Constable

• English

• Landscape Paintings

John Constable-The beauty of nature

John Turner

• English

• Landscape Paintings

• Attempted to convey

“moods” of nature

• Leads into

Impressionism

Joseph Turner- nature unleashed

Romantic Literature

Romantic Poetry• Classical philosophy would say poerty has a form, rules

that govern that form, a purpose, and these qualities can

be measured, or at least judged, through the application of

reason.

• Meter and rhyme can be tested and found to meet the rules

• The Romantic philosophy would describe the poem as

subjective to the object of inspiration.

• The images and emotions behind the poetry are quantified

by the re-creation in words.

• Structure is dictated by the moment and the inspiration,

rather than fitting inspiration into a previously defined

structure.

William Wordworth “The Daffodils”

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Keats

“Ode on a Grecian Urn”

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Mary Shelley

Frankenstein

• Bizarre and unusual

• Science gone awry

• Focuses on fantasy rather than reality

• Focuses on struggles and emotions

Lord Byron

• Famous Romantic

• Great poet

– Uses heroism in his poetry

• Lived on the edge

– fought for Italian Independence

– fought and died fighting for Greek

Independence

– Heroic yet with epic flaws in his

humanity

Lord Byron“She walks in beauty”

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellow'd to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

Victor Hugo“The Hunchback of Notre Dame”

• Great poet and novelist

• Created imaginative characters with

great emotions in historical settings

• Quasimodo and Esméralda– She saves him, he saves her, she gets hung, he

kills his father figure then saddened, he starves

himself to death at her grave

– Their skeletons later found together in an

embrace

Romantic Music

• Evokes powerful images and emotions

– Chopin

– Beethoven

Architecture

• Revival of medieval Gothic architecture

The British

parliament building,

though it looks like it

was built in medieval

times, was built in the

mid 19th century

Religious Revival

• Rejection of Deism

• Revival of Catholicism

– Awe of God, awe of Cathedrals

• New Protestant movement: Methodism

– Emphasized deep emotional experiences/conversions

John Wesley, founder of Methodism