romanticism

ADVENT:
Around the turn of the 19th century, the Romantic movement began to emerge
throughout Europe. The Romantic movement, which emphasized emotion and
imagination, emerged in response to artistic disillusion with the Enlightenment
ideas of order and reason. Romanticism encompassed art of all forms, from
literary works to architectural masterpieces

Romanticism quickly spread throughout Europe and the United States to

challenge the rational ideal held so tightly during the Enlightenment. The
artists emphasized that sense and emotions - not simply reason and order -
were equally important means of understanding and experiencing the world.
Romanticism celebrated the individual imagination and intuition in the
enduring search for individual rights and liberty.

The term Romanticism was first used in Germany in the late 1700s when the
critics August and Friedrich Schlegal wrote of romantische Poesie ("romantic
poetry"). Madame de Staël, an influential leader of French intellectual life,
following the publication of her account of her German travels in 1813,
popularized the term in France.

Romanticism emerged after 1789, the year of the French Revolution that
caused a relevant social change in Europe. Based on the same ideals of
liberty, fraternity and legality this new movement was born, aiming to highlight
the emotions and the irrational world of the artist and of nature as opposed to
the prevalence of Reason and Rationality during Neoclassicism. Emphasizing
the subjective, the individual, the spontaneous, irrational, visionary,
imaginative, and transcendental, Romanticism rejected the style and notions
of Neoclassicism

Both the English poet and artist William Blake and the Spanish painter
Francisco Goya have been dubbed "fathers" of Romanticism by various
scholars for their works' emphasis on subjective vision, the power of the
imagination, and an often darkly critical political awareness. Blake, working
principally in engravings, published his own illustrations alongside his poetry
that expressed his vision of a new world, creating mythical worlds full of gods
and powers, and sharply critiquing industrial society and the oppression of the
individual. Goya explored the terrors of irrationality in works like his Black
Paintings (1820-23), which conveyed the nightmarish forces underlying human
life and events.

In France, the painter Antoine-Jean Gros influenced the artists Théodore

Géricault and Eugène Delacroix who subsequently led and developed the
Romantic movement. Théodore Géricault's painting The Raft of the Medusa
(1819) and Eugene Delacroix's The Barque of Dante (1822) brought
Romanticism to the attention of a larger public. Both paintings scandalized the
Paris Salons that they were exhibited in, Géricault in 1820 and Delacroix in
1822. Deviating from the Neoclassical style favored by the Academy and using
contemporary subject matter outraged the Academy and the larger public. The
depiction of emotional and physical extremity and varied psychological states
would become the hallmarks of French Romanticism.

Following Géricault's early death in 1824, Delacroix became the leader of the
Romantic movement, bringing to it his emphasis on color as a mode of
composition and the use of expressive brushwork to convey feeling. As a
result, by the 1820s Romanticism had become a dominant art movement
throughout the Western world.

In England, Germany, and the United States, the leading Romantic artists
focused primarily on landscape, as seen in the works of the British artist John
Constable, the German Caspar David Friedrich, and the American Thomas
Cole, but always with the concern of the individual's relation to nature.

Specifically, in the movement's early years, these figures predominantly

focused on landscape painting. The Romantic landscape genre was primarily
pioneered by JMW Turner, a British oil painter, watercolorist, and printmaker.
Early in his career, Turner was associated with the Neoclassical movement,
but a trip to the Swiss countryside sparked an artistic interest in nature, which
materialized as an imaginative and non-traditional approach to painting.

Another facet of the Romantic attitude toward nature emerges in the

landscapes of John Constable, whose art expresses his response to his native
English countryside. For his major paintings, Constable executed full-scale
sketches, as in a view of Salisbury Cathedral (50.145.8); he wrote that a sketch
represents “nothing but one state of mind—that which you were in at the
time.” When his landscapes were exhibited in Paris at the Salon of 1824, critics
and artists embraced his art as “nature itself.” Constable’s subjective, highly
personal view of nature accords with the individuality that is a central tenet of
Romanticism.
This interest in the individual and subjective—at odds with eighteenth-century
rationalism—is mirrored in the Romantic approach to portraiture. Traditionally,
records of individual likeness, portraits became vehicles for expressing a range of
psychological and emotional states in the hands of Romantic painters. Gericault
probed the extremes of mental illness in his portraits of psychiatric patients, as well
as the darker side of childhood in his unconventional portrayals of children. In his
portrait of Alfred Dedreux (41.17), a young boy of about five or six, the child appears
intensely serious, more adult than childlike, while the dark clouds in the background
convey an unsettling, ominous quality.
While Romantic landscapes rarely included human forms, they often featured
various members of the animal kingdom. In fact, many Romantic painters
represented animals as metaphors for human behavior and forces of nature.

Key Ideas & Accomplishments

● In part spurred by the idealism of the French Revolution, Romanticism

embraced the struggles for freedom and equality and the promotion of
justice. Painters began using current events and atrocities to shed light
on injustices in dramatic compositions that rivaled the more staid
Neoclassical history paintings accepted by national academies.
● Romanticism embraced individuality and subjectivity to counteract the
excessive insistence on logical thought. Artists began exploring various
emotional and psychological states as well as moods. The
preoccupation with the hero and the genius translated to new views of
the artist as a brilliant creator who was unburdened by academic dictate
and tastes. As the French poet Charles Baudelaire described it,
"Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor in
exact truth, but in a way of feeling."
● In many countries, Romantic painters turned their attention to nature
and plein air painting, or painting out of doors. Works based on close
observation of the landscape as well as the sky and atmosphere
elevated landscape painting to a new, more respectful level. While some
artists emphasized humans at one with and a part of nature, others
 portrayed nature's power and unpredictability, evoking a feeling of the
sublime - awe mixed with terror - in the viewer.
● Romanticism was closely bound up with the emergence of newly found
nationalism that swept many countries after the American Revolution.
Emphasizing local folklore, traditions, and landscapes, Romanticists
provided the visual imagery that further spurred national identity and
pride. Romantic painters combined the ideal with the particular, imbuing
their paintings with a call to spiritual renewal that would usher in an age
of freedom and liberties not yet seen.

Nationalism

The growing nationalism throughout Europe following the American

Revolution was closely tied to Romanticism. You can see this nationalism in
the emphasis on landscapes, traditions, and folklore in Romantic literature and
art. Through the visual imagery in these works, Romantic artists fed a sense of
national pride and identity. Many Romantic paintings are steeped in a call to
spiritual renewal, which would continue ushering in a new age of liberties and
freedom.

Subjectivity

One of the most significant elements of Romanticism was the increased

emphasis on the personal and subjective power of the individual artist. The
Neoclassical period, which preceded Romanticism, valued strict rule-based
practices and logical thought in art. We can consider Romanticism as a direct
reactionary response to the Neoclassical period.

Romantic artists began to explore different psychological, emotional, and

mood states in their works. The Neoclassical obsession with genius and hero
transformed into new ideas about the artist. Artists were able to express
themselves fully, free from the tastes and rules of academic institutions.

Painting en Plein Air

Throughout Europe, Romantic artists began turning their attention to the

natural world. With this growing fascination with nature, there was an increase
in the practice of painting en Plein air, or outside. Artists would paint natural
scenes by observing them directly. This process enabled artists to produce
elevated landscapes. The close and intimate observation of the natural world
translated into more emotive and atmospheric scenes.

Some Romantic artists painted scenes that emphasized humans as being one
with nature. Other artists preferred to portray the powerful and unpredictable
forces of nature in paintings that evoke feelings of awe and sometimes terror.
Romantic artists harbored a deep appreciation for the beauty of the natural
world.

Justice and Equality

Partly driven forwards by French Revolutionary idealism, the Romantic period

embraced the fight for equality, freedom, and the advancement of justice. Many
Romantic painters began painting scenes of current atrocities and social
events. Dramatic compositions illuminated instances of injustice and rivaled
the more rigid history paintings of the Neoclassical period.

Most Famous Romanticism Paintings

The Nightmare (1781) by Henry Fuseli

Henry Fuseli’s Romantic artwork, The Nightmare, was the first of its kind
making Fuseli somewhat of a transitional figure– leading the progression of art
from The Age of Reason to Romantic-era art. Fuseli’s peculiar and macabre
artwork depicts a seemingly spellbound woman in deep sleep draped across a
divan.

The woman has her arms stretched below her, with a demon-like incubus
crouched on top of her, glaring threateningly at the viewer. Partially hidden, we
see a mysterious mare with bewitching white eyes and flaring nostrils. In
Fuseli’s ghastly portrayal, he paints the woman in an idealized manner, which
coincides with the principles of Neoclassicism.
However, he deviated from this by using his painting to explore the darker
depths of the human psyche, while most were busied with the scientific
exploration of the physical world.

Although the woman is enveloped in bright light, Fuseli suggests that the light
cannot pierce the nightmarish realm of the human mind. The relationship
between the woman, the incubus, and the mare is not explicit and therefore
remains suggestive, emphasizing the frightening possibilities.

The Nightmare frightened and shocked its audience when exhibited at

London’s Royal Academy. It was unlike anything the public was used to
seeing, as the subject matter was not taken from the bible or a moment in
history, nor was it created for the sake of moralizing the vie

The Raft of the Medusa (1818 – 1819) by Théodore Géricault

Théodore Géricault’s famous Romantic art, The Raft of Medusa, depicted the
shipwreck that took place in 1816 when hundreds of soldiers from the French
Royal Navy were dispatched to colonize Senegal. The ship began to sink after
hitting a sandbank and those who survived built an emergency raft to get to
shore but were rapidly lost at sea.

Géricault spent months researching the event, speaking to and sketching

survivors, studying cadavers, and called on friends to model, including the
famous Eugène Delacroix.

The emotional significance of Géricault’s masterpiece is imprinted on the

viewer. Géricault fused reality and art to deliberately portray an artistically and
politically confrontational piece. Géricault’s decision to depict a Black man at
the apex of the composition was incredibly controversial as it expressed his
abolitionist sentiments.

The Kiss (1859) by Francesco Haye

Francesco Hayez was a famous Italian Romantic period artist and his painting,
The Kiss, is considered his best-known work. Alfonso Maria Visconti di
Saliceto commissioned the painting, later donating it to the Pinacoteca di
Brera. The Kiss depicts a man and a woman embracing in a passionate kiss,
enveloped into one another, their faces remain hidden.
The figures represent a couple from the Middle Ages as suggested by their
dress. However, they remain unrecognizable, as Hayez wanted the focus to
remain on the act of their embrace.

The Kiss showcases Hayez’s incredible skill as he executed his painting with
such fine detail. Hayez fused scenes of exceptional beauty with political
accounts. The underlying message Hayez imparts on the viewer is that of a
national union as the painting was representative of Risorgimento, the “Italian
Unification”.

Hayez aimed to pay homage to the French because they were allied to Italy,
hence the painting’s chromatic range with the red of the man’s tights, and the
white and blue of the woman’s dress, alluding to the French flag.

This painting is a symbolic masterpiece that has come to represent Italian

Romanticism.