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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 1501–1600 of 1752 results
Doña Isabel de Porcel
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $309.00Seascape with Storm Coming On 1840
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00The birth of Aphrodite 1887
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $359.00Kronstadt raid 1840
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00María Luisa of Parma wearing panniers 1879
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $319.00Seascape
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00Kronstadt, Fort “Emperor Alexander I” 1844
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00Maria Luisa of Parma, Queen of Spain 1790
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Stormy Sea with Dolphins
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00Portrait of Antonia Zárate 1805
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $279.00Shipping
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Shipwreck 1843
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $419.00Portrait of Senora Ceán Bermudez 1795
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Stormy Sea Breaking on a Shore
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00The Black Sea Fleet enters the port of Sevastopol, 1852
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $399.00Señora Sabasa Garcia
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $279.00View of the Seashore in the Environs of St Petersburg
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $339.00Waves Breaking against the Wind 1840
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $329.00Thérèse Louise de Sureda
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $309.00View in Crimea at sunset 1862
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $379.00Waves Breaking on a Lee Shore at Margate 1840
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $329.00Shepherds with a flock of sheep 1872
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00The Arrival of Louis-Philippe at the Royal Clarence Yard
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00Young Lady Wearing a Mantilla and Basquina
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00María Jerónima Daoíz y Guendica
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $279.00Portrait of Senator Alexander Kaznacheyev, Governor and Marshal of the Nobility of Tauride Province 1848
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $379.00The Departure of the Fleet
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00La Tirana 1792
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $329.00Portrait of vice admiral M.P. Lazarev 1839
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $349.00Scene in Venice
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00Bernarda Tavira
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $289.00The Disembarkation of Louis-Philippe at the Royal Clarence Yard
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00The Survivors.jpeg
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $329.00Flint Castle, North Wales
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $319.00María Antonia Gonzaga, Dowager Marchioness of Villafranca 1795
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $269.00View of the Crimea 1851
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $329.00Doña Maria Teresa da Vallabriga 1783
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $319.00The storm
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $309.00View from the coast of a stormy sea with a sailing ship, 1865
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $329.00Claudian Harbour Scene
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $349.00Duchess of Abrantes 1816
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $289.00View of the Amalfi Coast, 1865
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $329.00A market scene in Constantinople, with the Hagia Sophia beyond
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $319.00From the Isola Borromena, Lago Maggiore 1795
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $319.00Leocadia Zorrilla
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Inverary Pier, Loch Fyne- Morning 1845
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00Maria Luisa Queen of Spain 1799
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $329.00Moonlit night at the seaside 1847
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $339.00Lake Lucerne, with the Rigi
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00María Ramona de Barbachano
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00View in Oreande 1858
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $349.00Crimean coast by moonlight 1853
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $379.00Maria Teresa de Vallabriga 1783
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $269.00Thun 1844
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00Marquesa de Caballero 1807
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $279.00Riva degli Schiavone, Venice- Water Fête 1845
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $329.00View of Sevastopol from the Northern Bank
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $399.00A View onto Moscow from the Sparrow Hills 1848
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $369.00Ludlow Castle, Shropshire
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $319.00Narcisa Barañana de Goicoechea
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Harbour Scene
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $339.00Lulworth Castle, Dorset 1820
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $319.00Portrait of a Lady 1824
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Melrose 1831
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $349.00Portrait of Countess of Haro
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Returning to the Ship, 1887
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $359.00A view of the Ayu-Dag Mountain in the evening light
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $349.00On the Washburn 1815
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Portrait of Doña María Teresa de Vallabriga y Rozas 1783
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $289.00A View of Constantinople by Moonlight 1846
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00Portrait of Joaquina Candado Ricarte
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $309.00The Quiet Ruin, Cattle in Water; Evening
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00Ploughing Up Turnips, near Slough
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00Portrait of María Teresa de Borbón y Vallabriga, 15th Countess of Chinchón 1800
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $309.00Rescuers from the shipwreck 1844
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $399.00Portrait of the Actress Antonia Zárate
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $279.00Sea, Koktebel Bay
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $379.00The Roman Tower, Andernach 1817
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Portrait of the Countess of Chinchon
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $349.00Sea shore, Calm, 1843
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $449.00The Thames above Waterloo Bridge 1830
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00Portrait of the Marquesa de Lazan 1804
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $349.00Sea view from the chapel on the shore 1845
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $399.00The Visit to the Tomb
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00Tadea Arias de Enríquez 1789
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $359.00The Mekhitarist Fathers on Lazarus Island, Venice 1843
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $389.00Tivoli and the Roman Campagna 1798
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00Italian Landscape 1855
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $389.00The Countess of Casa Flores
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Warkworth Castle, Northumberland 1799
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Doña Francisca Vicenta Chollet y Caballero 1806
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $289.00Galleon in the Fog
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00The Fall of an Avalanche in the Grisons
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00The Countess-Duchess of Benavente, 1785
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00The Pyramids at Gizeh 1832
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00View of Constantinople by evening light 1846
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $399.00The Artist and his Admirers 1827
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $279.00The Duchess of Abrantes 1816
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $289.00View of the Venetian lagoon 1841
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00St. George Monastery. Cape Fiolent 1846
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $439.00