The Romantic Hero

Bierstadt, Lander’s Peak (1863)

David,

NapoleonCrossingthe GreatSaintBernard Pass(1800)

Romanticism: 19th century

Imagination/subjectivity (anti-rationalism) Nature (beautiful/sublime/picturesque) Nationalism (spirit of the Folk) Nostalgia (the Gothic, the Medieval) Exoticism Heroism and Hero worship

Nationalism

“an ideology (or belief system) grounded in a people’s sense of cultural and political unity” (Fiero 699)

Romantic Hero

Creative, subjective, and egotistical The Romantic artist himself/herself is a hero

Rises above but inspires the common person

Pushes limits of morality through his/her own subjective experience

Heroism and Hero Worship

Nationalist Hero: Napoleon

Promethean Hero (Byron’s Prometheus/Frankenstein/American Abolitionists)

Faustian Hero

Goethe’s Faust

Gericault, The Raft of the “Medusa” (1818)

Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (1830)

David, The Oath of the Horatii (1785)

Bartholdi,Liberty Enlightening the World(1871-84)