Romanticism

Romanticism?
EWW. NO!
Caspar David Friedrich
Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog
What artistic
characteristics
do you notice
about this
painting?
Romanticism
 Context
 The Visual Arts
 Music
 Literature
Enlightenment/Neoclassical/Age of Reason Ideas
 Reason
 Universal Truths
 Natural Order
 Academics
 Classical
 (Think Epics!)
Romantic Ideas
• Love of Nature
• Idealization of Rural Living

• Faith in Common People
• Emphasis on Freedom and
Individualism
• Spontaneity, intuition, feeling,
imagination, wonder
- Rejection of organized religion, tradition
From Enlightenment to Romanticism
Industrial Revolution
French Revolutions &
Revolution Rise of Nationalism
1750 1789 1800 1850
From Enlightenment to Romanticism
Descartes: “Cogito, ergo sum” Rousseau: “Exister, pour nous, c’est sentir”
(I think, therefore I exist.)
(For us, to exist is to feel.)
Romanticism as a reaction to:

 The Age of Reason
 The Industrial Revolution
 The French Revolution
Romanticism & The Industrial
Revolution
What might be some

negative effects of The
Industrial Revolution?
Romanticism & The French
Revolution- French emotional reaction
- Middle class dominance
- Underclass causes adopted
- Frustration of common
people from lack of

political
and economic agency
Out of this
revolution comes…
Freedom
Nationalism
Visual Arts: Examples
Romantic Art
Neoclassical Art
How are these two pieces of art different?
Death of Marat
What words best describe these paintings?
 Romantic
 Neoclassical
What style is this?
How does Nature

appear in this painting?
Bottom Right Detail
JM Turner
The Slave Ship
What does this painting
say about individualism
and the common man?
This painting depicts an
1808 shooting at Montana
del Principe Pio. Can you tell
Goya’s reaction to the event?
What features indicate
his reaction?
Breaking from Neoclassical Art
"If you want to do art you

must first study the rules,
second study the great
masters, third forget the
rules, because genius begins
where trite rules end.”
- Sir Joshua Reynolds
(1723-1792)
What rules does
Reynolds break
in this painting?
Visual Arts: Summary
 Earlier art (neoclassical art)  Romantic art was emotional,
was rigid, severe, and deeply-felt, individualistic,
unemotional. and exotic. It has been
 Follows strict classical rules described as a reaction to
from ancient Greece and earlier styles (neoclassical
Rome. art).
• Conveyed personal feeling of

artist.
• Glorified the common man.
• Depicted the exotic (subjects).
• Landscapes/Nature became
important.
Romantic Literature
 The publication of
Lyrical Ballads by
Wordsworth and
Coleridge in 1798 is
considered the
beginning of literary
Romanticism.
 Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge

 Byron, Shelley, Keats
 The Gothic Novel… Frankenstein
“[Romanticism] must have come on like punk rock
to a public groaning under the weight of over-
cooked Augustinisms.”
“They said, we'd be artistically

free
When we signed that bit of
paper.”
-The Clash
How can Romanticism be seen

as a rebellion against The System, Augustinisms = classical,
The Man, The Accepted? religious commentary from
Romantic Literature
Relationship with Nature
“Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part
Of me and my soul, as I of them?” - Byron
“[A mountain is] the type of a

majestic intellect, . . . There I beheld the
emblem of a giant mind that feeds upon
infinity.” - Wordsworth
What is the relationship between Romantic

Artists and nature?
What is the sublime?
Often associated with huge, overpowering

natural phenomena like mountains, waterfalls,
turbulent seas, and thunderstorms, the
“delightful terror” inspired by sublime visions
was supposed both to remind viewers of their
own insignificance in the face of nature and
divinity and to inspire them with a sense of
transcendence.
How did the sublime relate to the beautiful?
Mere beauty was thought by the Romantics to

be inferior to the concept of the “sublime.” The
British writer and statesman Edmund Burke, who
was interested in categorizing aesthetic
responses, identified beauty with delicacy and
harmony, and he identified the sublime with
vastness, obscurity, and a capacity to inspire
terror.
The Falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen, Turner
Philippe Jacques De Loutherbourg

Defining Romanticism
 Romanticism refers to a movement in art,
literature, and music during the 19th
century.
 Romanticism is broadly characterized by:
 Imagination
 Emotion
 Inspiration
 Individuality
Imagination
 Imagination was
emphasized over
“reason.”
 This was a backlash
against the rationalism
characterized by the
Neoclassical “Age of
Reason.”
 Imagination was
considered necessary for
creating all art.
 British writer Samuel
Taylor Coleridge called it
“intellectual intuition.”
Emotion
 Romantics placed value on feeling and
instincts over reason.
 Emotions were important in Romantic art.
 British Romantic William Wordsworth

described poetry as “the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings.”
Inspiration
 The Romantic artist, musician, or writer, is
an “inspired creator” rather than a
“technical master.”
 Romantic writers were “going with the
flow,” or being spontaneous, rather than

“getting it precise” like Milton, Pope, John
Donne.
Individuality
 Romantics celebrated the individual.
 Triumph of common man in French Revolution.
 Women’s Rights and Abolitionism were taking
root as major movements.
 Walt Whitman, an American Romantic writer,
wrote a lengthy poem entitled “Song of Myself”;
it begins, “I celebrate myself…”

Romanticism

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Romanticism?

• Idealization of Rural Living

Romanticism as a reaction to:

What might be some

people from lack of

How does Nature

"If you want to do art you

• Conveyed personal feeling of

 Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge

“They said, we'd be artistically

How can Romanticism be seen

“[A mountain is] the type of a

What is the relationship between Romantic

Often associated with huge, overpowering

Mere beauty was thought by the Romantics to

Philippe Jacques De Loutherbourg

 British Romantic William Wordsworth

flow,” or being spontaneous, rather than

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