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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.
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Hamlet and His Mother 1849
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $409.00Stoke Poges Church 1834
By John ConstableSizes starting at $249.00The apostle Santiago and his disciples adoring the Virgin of the Pilar
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $349.00Venice with the Salute 1840
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $309.00A Windmill on the Downs near Brighton
By John ConstableSizes starting at $289.00Ecstasy of Saint Anthony 1780
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $379.00Isola Bella on Lake Maggiore
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00Rome from Monte Mario 1818
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $319.00The Stage of Archduchess Isabella
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $359.00Distant View of Salisbury Cathedral 1821
By John ConstableSizes starting at $289.00Italian ship at sea
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00Lot and his daughters 1774
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $359.00Rome from Monte Mario 1820
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $319.00The Agony in the Garden 1851
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $329.00East Bergholt 1813
By John ConstableSizes starting at $299.00Figures on a moonlit coast 1858
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By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00The Death of Ophelia
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $329.00Venice from Fusina 1821
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Bonneville, Savoy 1803
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Full Moon, 1855
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $329.00Harnham Ridge, Salisbury 1829
By John ConstableSizes starting at $279.00L’agriculture, 1834
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $459.00Saint Isabel of Portugal Healing the Wounds of a Sick Woman 1799
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Barnard Castle 1825
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Landscape with Windmills near Haarlem 1830
By John ConstableSizes starting at $249.00Sailing Ship on a Calm Sea by Moonlight
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $339.00Saint Joseph’s Dream 1772
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $329.00Woman Lying Naked Back View
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $409.00Buttermere Lake, with Part of Cromackwater, Cumberland, a Shower
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $309.00Saints Justa and Rufina 1817
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $359.00Sea View by Moonlight 1878
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $379.00Weymouth Bay
By John ConstableSizes starting at $269.00Woman With a Parrot – 1827
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $329.00Bridgnorth on the River Severn (Shropshire) 1798
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Saints Justa and Rufina
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $379.00Seated Nude (Mademoiselle Rose) 1820
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $309.00Ship by Moonlight
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $339.00Sketch at Hampstead – Evening
By John ConstableSizes starting at $279.00Andernach 1817
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $329.00Genoese towers in the Black Sea
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00Hampstead Heath, Harrow in the distance
By John ConstableSizes starting at $269.00Mademoiselle Rose
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $309.00San Luís Gonzaga
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Binger Lorch and the Mäuseturm
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $349.00Dedham Vale – Evening
By John ConstableSizes starting at $279.00Moonlit Landing, 1895
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $419.00Santa Bárbara 1773
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $279.00Woman With White Socks
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $329.00A Hayfield near East Bergholt at Sunset
By John ConstableSizes starting at $359.00Crichton Castle (Mountainous Landscape with a Rainbow) 1818
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Moonlit Night 1878
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00The Hanged Monk 1810
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $259.00Two Studies of a Standing Indian From Calcutta
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $309.00A Landscape near East Bergholt – Evening
By John ConstableSizes starting at $419.00Caley Hall, Yorkshire with Stag Hunters Returning Home 1818
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Golden Horn Bay Turkey 1846
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $389.00The Death of Saint Francis Xavier
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Two Studies of an Indian From Calcutta, Seated and Standing
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $309.00A View of Boppart, with Figures on the River Bank 1819
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $329.00Evening in Crimea
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $419.00Hampstead Heath
By John ConstableSizes starting at $299.00The Immaculate Conception 1784
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $389.00The Prisoner of Chillon
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $289.00Glaucus and Scylla 1841
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $249.00Hampstead Heath
By John ConstableSizes starting at $279.00Moonlight Night on Capri 1841
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $389.00Self Portrait 1837
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $269.00The Last Communion of St Joseph of Calasanz 1819
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $359.00Cochem on the Mosel 1839
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $289.00Hampstead Heath with Bathers
By John ConstableSizes starting at $299.00Louis Auguste Schwiter
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $309.00On the coast at night
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $399.00Saint Hermenegild in Prison 1799
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $399.00Devil’s Bridge, Saint Gotthard’s Pass 1804
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00London from Hampstead, with a double rainbow 1831
By John ConstableSizes starting at $309.00Moonlight in Feodosia
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00Portrait of Madame François Simon 1829
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $269.00Tobias and the Angel 1787
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $309.00Dedham from Langham
By John ConstableSizes starting at $309.00Dolbadarn Castle
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Moonlit Night 1849
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $409.00Portrait of a Woman in a Blue Turban 1827
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $279.00Truth, Time and History
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $339.00Durham 1801
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $329.00Hampstead Heath looking towards Harrow
By John ConstableSizes starting at $329.00Moonlight over the Dnieper
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $419.00Portrait of Félix Guillemardet
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $279.00Venus and Adonis 1771
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $329.00Apparition of the Virgin of the Pilar
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $379.00Dedham Church from Flatford 1810
By John ConstableSizes starting at $359.00Portrait De Charles De Verninac
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $269.00Saltash with the Water Ferry, Cornwall 1811
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $299.00Searching for survivors
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $309.00Baptism of Christ
By Francisco GoyaSizes starting at $299.00Carlisle 1832
By J.M.W. TurnerSizes starting at $349.00Hampstead – Stormy Sunset 1822
By John ConstableSizes starting at $349.00Madame Henri François Riesener 1835
By Eugene DelacroixSizes starting at $279.00The Bay of Yalta with the Magobi and Ai Petri mountains
By Ivan AivazovskySizes starting at $329.00Cloud Study with Trees 1821
By John ConstableSizes starting at $349.00