ROMANTICISM

The Romantic era/Period
Romanticism
An artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated
in Europe toward the end of the 18th century.

 It was also a revolt against aristocratic social and political

norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the
scientific rationalization of nature.

Peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism

and radicalism
 The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic
source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such
emotions as apprehension, horror and terror.

Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal

models to elevate a revived medievalism and elements of art.

Also attempted to embrace the exotic, unfamiliar, and distant

in modes more authentic than Rococo, harnessing the power of
the imagination to envision and to escape.
DEFINING ROMANTICISM
Basic characteristics

Defining the nature of Romanticism may be approached

from the starting point of the primary importance of the free
expression of the feelings of the artist.

The importance the Romantics placed on untrammeled feeling

is summed up in the remark of the German painter 
Caspar David Friedrich that "the artist's feeling is his law".

In order to truly express these feelings, the content of the art
must come from the imagination of the artist
As well as rules, the influence of models from other works
would impede the creator's own imagination,
so originality was absolutely essential. The concept of
the genius, or artist who was able to produce his own original
work through this process of "creation from nothingness", is
key to Romanticism, and to be derivative was the worst sin.
This idea is often called "romantic originality.
 Romantics were distrustful of the world of men, and tended to
believe that a close connection with nature was mentally and
morally healthy. Romantic art addressed its audiences directly and
personally with what was intended to be felt as the personal voice
of the artist. So, in literature, "much of romantic poetry invited the
reader to identify the protagonists with the poets themselves"

William Blake, The Little Girl Found, fromSongs of Innocence and Experience,

1794
The term
The application of the term to literature first became
common in Germany, where the circle around the Schlegel
brothers began to speak of romantische Poesie ("romantic
poetry") in the 1790s.

The group of words with the root "Roman" in the various

European languages, such as romance and Romanesque,
have a complicated history, but by the middle of the 18th
century "romantic" in English and romantique in French
were both in common use as adjectives of praise for
natural phenomena such as views and sunsets, in a sense
close to modern English usage but without the implied
sexual element.
Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1818
Eugène Delacroix, Death of Sardanapalus, 1827, taking itsOrientalist subject from a
play by Lord Byron
Philipp Otto Runge, 
The Morning, 1808
Hudson River School (1835 - 1870)

Hudson River School was the first American

school of landscape painting active from 1835-
1870. The subjects of their art were romantic
spectacles from the Hudson River Valley and
upstate New York. The artist Thomas Cole is
synonymous with this region and first leader of
the group.
Famous Painters
 Albert Bierstadt

• German Painter

•From sketches and oil studies done from nature, he

painted in his New York studio the huge, carefully
detailed panoramic views of Western scenery that made
him one of America's most admired painters in the 1860s
and '70s.
Artist : Albert Bierstadt
Painting Valley of the Yosemite

Artist Albert Bierstadt

Painting The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-
1867) 

•French Neoclassical painter

•Although he thought of himself as a painter

of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin
and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his
life it was his portraits, both painted and
drawn, that were recognized as his greatest
legacy.
Artist : J. A. D. Ingres Artist : J. A. D. Ingres
Painting : Male Torso Painting : The Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the Tent of Achilles
Francisco de Goya
(1746-1828 )

•Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

•Spanish painter and engraver

•His later influence is significant since his art

was both deeply subversive and subjective,
at a time when these attitudes were not
predominant.

•His themes go from merry festivals for

tapestry draft cartons to scenes of war, fight
and corpses.
 Artist : Francisco de Goya
Painting The Parasol

Artist : Francisco de Goya

Painting : The Countess of Chinchon
John Singleton Copley
  (1738-1815)

•Famous for his portraits of important figures in

colonial New England, particularly men and
women of the middle class.

•His portraits were innovative in that they tended

to portray their subjects with artifacts that were
indicative of their lives.
 Artist : John Singleton Copley
Painting : Admiral of the Fleet

Artist : John Singleton Copley

Painting : Mary MacIntosh Royall and Elizabeth Royall
Sculptures
François Rude 
• most famous for sculptures gracing the Arc de Triomphe.

• Foremost of these is Departure of the Volunteers, which portrays the

goddess liberty urging the forces of the French Revolution onward. This
work may be considered the sculptural counterpart of Delacroix’s Liberty
Leading the People.
Departure of the Volunteers
Antoine-Louis Barye 
• Likely the most famous animal sculptor of all time.

• Via careful observation of creatures at the Paris zoo, he became a master

of animal anatomy. Most of his works are individual animals or
predator/prey duos; a few feature mythological animal-human hybrids
(e.g. centaurs, minotaurs). The scale of Barye’s work ranges from large
monuments to portable sculptures.
GNU
Tiger Attacking a Stag