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Romanticism
Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution. It was partly a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature.
The movement stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror and awe-especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and custom to something noble, and argued for a “natural” epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language, custom and usage.
Our modern sense of a romantic character is sometimes based on Byronic or Romantic ideals. Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to elevate medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval, in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl and industrialism, and it also attempted to embrace the exotic, unfamiliar and distant in modes more authentic than chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape.
Although the movement is rooted in German Pietism, which prized intuition and emotion over Enlightenment rationalism, the ideologies and events of the French Revolution laid the background from which Romanticism emerged. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism, which was in part an escape from modern realities, indeed, in the second half of the 19th century, “Realism” was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism. Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as misunderstood heroic individuals and artists that altered society. It also legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority which permitted freedom from Classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas.
In a basic sense, the term “Romanticism” has been used to refer to certain artists, poets, writers, musicians, as well as political, philosophical and social thinkers of the late 18th and early to mid 19th centuries. It has equally been used to refer to various artistic, intellectual, and social trends of that era. Despite this general usage of the term, a precise characterization and specific definition of Romanticism have been the subject of debate in the fields of intellectual history and literary history throughout the twentieth century, without any great measure of consensus emerging. Arthur Lovejoy attempted to demonstrate the difficulty of this problem in his seminal article “On The Discrimination of Romanticisms” in his Essays in the History of Ideas (1948), some scholars see romanticism as essentially continuous with the present, some see in it the inaugural moment of modernity, some see it as the beginning of a tradition of resistance to the Enlightenment-a Counter-Enlightenment-and still others place it firmly in the direct aftermath of the French Revolution. An earlier definition comes from Charles Baudelaire: “Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling.”
Many intellectual historians have seen Romanticism as a key movement in the Counter-Enlightenment, a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment. Whereas the thinkers of the Enlightenment emphasized the primacy of deductive reason, Romanticism emphasized intuition, imagination, and feeling, to a point that has led to some Romantic thinkers being accused of irrationalism.
In visual art and literature, Romanticism found recurrent themes in the evocation or criticism of the past, the cult of “sensibility” with its emphasis on women and children, the heroic isolation of the artist or narrator, and respect for a new, wilder, untrammeled and “pure” nature. Furthermore, several romantic authors, such as Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, based their writings on the supernatural/occult and human psychology.
The Scottish poet James Macpherson influenced the early development of Romanticism with the international success of his Ossian cycle of poems published in 1762, inspiring both Goethe and the young Walter Scott.
An early German influence came from Johann Wolfgang Goethe whose 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther had young men throughout Europe emulating its protagonist, a young artist with a very sensitive and passionate temperament. At that time Germany was a multitude of small separate states, and Goethe’s works would have a seminal influence in developing a unifying sense of nationalism. Another philosophic influence came from the German idealism of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schelling, making Jena (where Fichte lived, as well as Schelling,Hegel, Schiller and the brothers Schlegel) a center for early German romanticism (“Jenaer Romantik”). Important writers were Ludwig Tieck, Novalis (Heinrich von Ofterdingen, 1799), Heinrich von Kleist and Friedrich Hoelderlin. Heidelberg later became a center of German romanticism, where writers and poets such as Clemens Brentano, Achim von Arnim, and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff met regularly in literary circles. Important motifs in German Romanticism are travelling, nature, and ancient myths. The later German Romanticism of, for example, E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann (The Sandman), 1817, and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff’s Das Marmorbild (The Marble Statue), 1819, was darker in its motifs and has gothic elements.
In predominantly Roman Catholic countries Romanticism was less pronounced than in Germany and Britain, and tended to develop later, after the rise of Napoleon. Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand is often called the “Father of French Romanticism”. In France, the movement is associated with the nineteenth century, particularly in the paintings of Theodore Gericault and Eugene Delacroix, the plays, poems and novels of Victor Hugo (such as Les Miserables and Ninety-Three), and the novels of Stendhal.
In Russia, the principal exponent of Romanticism is Alexander Pushkin. Mikhail Lermontov attempted to analyse and bring to light the deepest reasons for the Romantic idea of metaphysical discontent with society and self, and was much influenced by Lord Byron. The poet Fyodor Tyutchev was also an important figure of the movement in Russia, and was heavily influenced by the German Romantics.
In the United States, romantic gothic literature made an early appearance with Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) and Rip Van Winkle (1819), followed from 1823 onwards by the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper, with their emphasis on heroic simplicity and their fervent landscape descriptions of an already-exotic mythicized frontier peopled by “noble savages”, similar to the philosophical theory of Rousseau, exemplified by Uncas, from The Last of the Mohicans. There are picturesque “local color” elements in Washington Irving’s essays and especially his travel books. Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of the macabre and his balladic poetry were more influential in France than at home, but the romantic American novel developed fully in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s atmosphere and melodrama. Later Transcendentalist writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson still show elements of its influence and imagination, as does the romantic Realism of Walt Whitman.
But by the 1880s, psychological and social Realism was competing with romanticism in the novel. The poetry of Emily Dickinson-nearly unread in her own time-and Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick can be taken as epitomes of American Romantic literature. As in England, Germany, and France, literary Romanticism had its counterpart in American visual arts, most especially in the exaltation of untamed America found in the paintings of the Hudson River School. Painters like Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Edwin Church and others often combined a sense of the sublime with underlying religious and philosophical themes. Thomas Cole’s paintings feature strong narratives as in The Voyage of Life series painted in the early 1840s that depict man trying to survive amidst an awesome and immense nature, from the cradle to the grave.
Read moreShowing 1101–1200 of 1752 results
Equestrian portrait of Manuel Godoy 1794
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $279.00Sketch For “The Opening of Waterloo Bridge Seen from Whitehall Stairs, June 18th 1817”
By John ConstableSizes starting at $279.00Sveaborg 1844
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00View of Corinth, Greece
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00General José de Palafox on Horseback 1814
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $259.00Sketch for “The Haywain” 1820
By John ConstableSizes starting at $279.00The Arrival of Columbus’ Flotilla, 1880
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $389.00View of London from Greenwich
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Retrato ecuestre de Fernando VII 1808
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Salisbury Cathedral and Leadenhall from the River Avon 1820
By John ConstableSizes starting at $289.00The Bay of Naples 1845
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $399.00Virginia Water
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $309.00Sketch for ‘View on the Stour, Near Dedham’
By John ConstableSizes starting at $299.00The Bay of Naples in the Morning
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $449.00The Picador 1795
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $279.00Whalley Bridge and abbey, Lancashire- Dyers Washing and Drying Cloth
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $309.00Chateau de St. Michael, Bonneville, Savoy
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00Golding Constable’s Flower Garden 1815
By John ConstableSizes starting at $309.00Queen Maria Luisa on horseback 1799
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $269.00The Bay of Naples with Capri
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00Stoke-by-Nayland
By John ConstableSizes starting at $279.00The Coast at Yalta, 1851
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $379.00The Family of the Infante Don Luis 1784
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $399.00The Rock of Gibraltar, with shipping in the foreground
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Pendennis Castle and the entrance to Falmouth Harbour, Cornwall
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $309.00Preparatory sketch for The Family of Charles IV 1800
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $309.00Stoke-by-Nayland
By John ConstableSizes starting at $269.00The coast of Koktebel, Crimea
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $399.00Rosslyn Castle 1820
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $309.00Study of A boat passing a lock
By John ConstableSizes starting at $279.00The Family of the Duke of Osuna 1788
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $389.00The Galata Tower by Moonlight 1845
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $389.00Rough Sea with Wreckage
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00Self-Portrait with Dr. Arrieta 1820
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $349.00Study of a Cloudy Sky 1825
By John ConstableSizes starting at $279.00The Landing of N. N. Raevskyi at Subashi 1839
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $389.00Rough Sea
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00Study of a House among Trees – Evening
By John ConstableSizes starting at $259.00The Duke of Wellington
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $279.00The Port of Valletta on the Island of Malta 1844
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $419.00An Officer 1804
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $289.00Sea View 1826
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00Stonehenge at Sunset 1836
By John ConstableSizes starting at $299.00The Storm, Sunset
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $359.00Antonio Aniceto de Porlier, marqués de Bajamar 1780
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $289.00Golding Constable’s House, East Bergholt 1809
By John ConstableSizes starting at $359.00The Falls at Tivoli, Italy
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $309.00The Sea at Koktebel
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $379.00Antonio Veián y Monteagudo 1782
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Spring – East Bergholt Common
By John ConstableSizes starting at $339.00The Relief Ship
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $419.00Windsor 1798
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Asensio Julià 1814
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $279.00Study of Sky and Trees at Hampstead 1821
By John ConstableSizes starting at $279.00The ship “Maria” in the storm 1892
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00Tivoli with the Temple of the Sybil and the Cascades
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00Bartolomé Sureda y Miserol 1804
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $309.00Sir William Hamilton’s Villa 1795
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Study of sky and trees, with a red house, at Hampstead 1821
By John ConstableSizes starting at $259.00The Shore of the Sea. Calm 1843
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $449.00Carlos IV, King of Spain 1789
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $289.00Summer, Afternoon – After a Shower
By John ConstableSizes starting at $279.00Venetian lagoon. View of the island of San Giorgio 1844
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $449.00View of Dunster Castle from the Northeast
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $319.00A Great Tree 1796
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $319.00Charles IV in Court Dress 1789
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $329.00Summer Evening with Storm Clouds
By John ConstableSizes starting at $269.00Venice 1844
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $459.00Charles IV in Red 1789
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00The Mill Stream, Flatford 1814
By John ConstableSizes starting at $269.00Vessels in a swell at sunset 1850
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $369.00View of Hampton Court, Herefordshire, from the Southeast 1806
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $319.00Charles IV in the Uniform of a Colonel of the Royal Guard
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $329.00Summer – Evening Landscape 1825
By John ConstableSizes starting at $279.00View of a Seaside Town 1877
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $379.00View of Hampton Court, Hertefordshire, from the Northwest 1806
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $329.00Charles IV of Spain as Huntsman 1790
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $329.00Santa Lucia, A Convent near Caserta 1795
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $329.00The Leaping Horse (full-scale study) 1825
By John ConstableSizes starting at $299.00View of Kerch 1839
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $359.00Charles IV of Spain as Huntsman
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $319.00Christ Church Gate, Canterbury
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00The Celebration in East Bergholt of the Peace of 1814 1824
By John ConstableSizes starting at $289.00View of Reval, 1845
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $389.00Charles III as a Hunter 1786
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $339.00North East View of Grantham Church, Lincolnshire 1797
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00The Valley of the Stour with Dedham in the Distance
By John ConstableSizes starting at $269.00View of Feodosia in the Crimea
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $399.00Clare Hall and King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, from the Banks of the River Cam 1793
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $319.00King Charles IV 1790
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Venice, 1882
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $399.00View at Epsom 1809
By John ConstableSizes starting at $269.00Dent de Lion, Margate 1791
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Portrait of King Charles IV 1789
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00View at Hampstead, Looking Due East
By John ConstableSizes starting at $269.00View of Odessa on a Moonlit Night 1846
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $449.00Don Andrés del Peral
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00In the Valley Near Vietri 1794
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00View Towards the Rectory, East Bergholt 1813
By John ConstableSizes starting at $269.00Yalta mountains at night
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $349.00