Romanticism
Started: c.1780
Ended: 1830
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THE ART STORY
 | Neoclassicism Movement Page |
 | Realism Movement Page |
 | The Hudson River School Movement Page |
KEY ARTISTS
 | Francisco Goya Quick View Artist Page |
| Francisco Goya |  |
| Francisco Goya was an eighteenth-century Spanish painter, and is considered by many to be "the father of modern painting." Informed by the Baroque style and the Classicists, Goya's art was part of the Romanticism movement, but also contained provocative elements such as social critiques, nudes, war, and allegories of death. He is considered a major influence on the works of Manet, Picasso, and Dali. Art Story: Francisco Goya Artist Page | ||
 | Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Quick View Artist Page |
| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres | |
| Ingres was one of the last painters of the French Neoclassist tradition, whose charismatic portraits opened the path to the more passionate and modern Romantic movement. Art Story: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Artist Page | ||
 | Caspar David Friedrich Quick View Artist Page |
| Caspar David Friedrich | |
| Friedrich was a German Romantic landscape painter, and considered by many academics to be the finest German painter of his time. Like his contemporaries JMW Turner and John Constable, Friedrich's paintings portrayed the awesome power of nature with sublime, divine presence. Art Story: Caspar David Friedrich Artist Page | ||
 | Théodore Géricault Quick View Artist Page |
| Théodore Géricault | |
| Géricault was a French painter and lithographer during the early nineteenth century. Heavily influenced by the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens and the Baroque paintings of Velasquez, Géricault became a pioneer in the Romantic period of French painting - as highlighted in his master work: Raft of the Medusa. Art Story: Théodore Géricault Artist Page | ||
 | J.M.W. Turner Quick View Artist Page |
| J.M.W. Turner | |
| J.M.W. Turner (Joseph Mallord William Turner) was a mid-nineteenth-century British painter and watercolorist. Considered a key forerunner to the French Impressionists and the American Hudson River School of painters, Turner is known in history as "the painter of light." His trademark land- and sea-scapes are categorized as Romantic and Naturalist, given the artist's expressive and poetic application of natural light. Turner was among the last great pre-modern painters. Art Story: J.M.W. Turner Artist Page | ||
 | Henry Fuseli Quick View Artist Page |
| Henry Fuseli | |
| Fascinated by the the supernatural, Henry Fuseli's created dramatic illustrations of otherworldly scenes and creatures, ideas ultimately culminating in the Surrealism movement. Art Story: Henry Fuseli Artist Page | ||
"If by romanticism one means the free manifestation of my personal impulses, distancing myself from the rules set in schools, and my distaste for the recipes of the academy, I must confess that not only am I a romantic, I was from the age of 15."
Summary of Romanticism
At the end of the 18th century and well into the 19th, Romanticism quickly spread throughout Europe and the United States to challenge the rational ideal held so tightly during the Enlightenment. The artists emphasized that sense and emotions - not simply reason and order - were equally important means of understanding and experiencing the world. Romanticism celebrated the individual imagination and intuition in the enduring search for individual rights and liberty. Its ideals of the creative, subjective powers of the artist fueled avant-garde movements well into the 20th century.
Romanticist practitioners found their voices across all genres, including literature, music, art, and architecture. Reacting against the sober style of Neoclassicism preferred by most countries' academies, the far reaching international movement valued originality, inspiration, and imagination, thus promoting a variety of styles within the movement. Additionally, in an effort to stem the tide of increasing industrialization, many of the Romanticists emphasized the individual's connection to nature and an idealized past.
Key Ideas
When he was four years old, William Blake had a vision of "the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty!" Later, expressed in his poetry and visual art, his prophetic visions and belief in the "real and eternal world" of the imagination resulted in the unknown artist being acknowledged as the "father of Romanticism."
Important Art and Artists of Romanticism | |
  | The Nightmare (1781)Artist: Henry Fuseli Artwork description & Analysis: Fuseli's strange and macabre painting depicts a ravished woman, draped across a divan with a small, hairy incubus sitting on top of her, staring out menacingly at the viewer. A mysterious black mare with white eyes and flaring nostrils appears behind her, entering the scene through lush, red curtains. We seem to be looking at the effects and the contents of the woman's dream at the same time. Oil on canvas - Detroit Institute of Art |
 | The Ancient of Days from Europe a Prophecy copy B (1794)Artist: William Blake Artwork description & Analysis: The Ancient of Days served as the frontispiece to Blake's book, Europe a Prophecy (1794), which contained 18 engravings. This image depicts Urizen, a mythological figure first created by the poet in 1793 to represent the rule of reason and law and influenced by the image of God described in the Book of Proverbs as one who "set a compass upon the face of the earth." Depicted as an old man with flowing white beard and hair in an illuminated orb, surrounded by a circle of clouds, Urizen crouches, as his left hand extends a golden compass over the darkness below, creating and containing the universe. Blake combines classical anatomy with a bold and energetic composition to evoke a vision of divine creation. Relief etching with hand coloring - Glasgow University Library, Glasgow Scotland |
 | Bonaparte Visits the Plague Stricken in Jaffa (1804)Artist: Antoine Jean Gros Artwork description & Analysis: This painting depicts Napoleon I, not yet the Emperor, visiting his ailing soldiers in 1799 in Jaffa, Syria, at the end of his Egyptian Campaign. His troops had violently sacked the city but were subsequently stricken in an outbreak of plague. Gros creates a dramatic tableau of light and shade with Napoleon in the center, as if on a stage. He stands in front of a Moorish arcade and touches the sores of one of his soldiers, while his staff officer holds his nose from the stench. In the foreground, sick and dying men, many naked, suffer on the ground in the shadows. A Syrian man on the left, along with his servant who carries a breadbasket, gives bread to the ill, and two men behind them carry a man out on a stretcher. Oil on canvas - Louvre, Paris France |
More Romanticism Artwork and Analysis:
Content compiled and written by Rebecca Seiferle
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
" Movement Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Rebecca Seiferle
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
Available from:
First published on 25 Sep 2017. Updated and modified regularly. 
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