ROMANTICISM

1789 – 1850

▪ Romanticism began with the French Revolution and overlapped with

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

▪ After the failure of the French Revolution, people became disillusioned with Neoclassical ideals and realized that equality, freedom and brotherhood do not always work.

Man is born free, but everywhere is chains - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

ROMANTICISM

1789 – 1850

The Death of Chatterton,Henry Wallis, 1856

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818

▪ Artists reacted against what they saw as a loss of grace: culture and nobility; against the soulless industrial society; and against the rigid discipline of classical styles.

▪ People realised that humans were not essentially noble and rational.

▪ The darker side of man was revealed: the devil within.

▪ Industrial Revolution was an important influence on the Romantic movement, as it gave rise to inhumane working conditions with the emphasis on wealth and money. It also gave rive to the severing of traditional church ties, as people became more disillusioned with religious teachings.

▪ An intense pessimism and melancholy prevailed, hence the need for escapism.

▪ In the name of nature, Romantics acclaimed liberty, power, love, violence, the Greeks, the Middle Ages or anything else that aroused them.

▪ The movement stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience

▪ The Romantics focused on man’s inner being and the sublime.

▪ They idealized the hero, especially that of the tragic hero, who stands alone against a hostile world.

Romanticism continued:

Romanticism continued:

▪ Escapism was realised in two main direction through artworks:

1. A yearning for the past (especially the Middle Ages)

2. Portrayal of the imagination and fantasy. Fairytales, myths, legends.

Subject matter breaks with the boundaries of tradition and ‘good taste’, by focusing on the unacceptable and the ugly.

▪ Romanticism should not be seen as a style, but rather, as a state of being, or an outlook on life.

The Picture of the world of physical nature changed radically:

▪ Religion: No longer dominant role.

▪ Spiritual forces replaced by mechanical forces.1. Physics of relativity

2. Concept of time and space

3. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

◼ Characteristics on Romanticism:➢ Emphasis on individuality

➢ Freedom

➢ Spirituality

➢ Imagination rather than reason

➢ Feeling rather than thought

➢ Emotions painted in a bold, dramatic manner

➢ Painted pictures of nature in its untamed state, or other exotic settings filled with dramatic action, often with an emphasis on the past.

Romanticism was also Gothic:

➢ Used images of the Middle Ages

➢ Superstition, barbarism

➢ Dark mystery and superstition

➢ Worlds of fantasy, the sublime, the terrible, the nightmarish and the grotesque.

Eugène Delacroix1798 - 1863

Self-portrait, 1837 (Age 40)

Eugène Delacroix1798 - 1863

◼ Original Avant-garde artist and leader of the French Romantic School

◼ Emphasized the importance of the imagination

◼ Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement

◼ Attendant emphasis on color and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modeled form

◼ He believed the purpose of pictorial art is to stir and electrify the viewer.

◼ He did not use black, but rather violet and green for the shadows.

◼ Master of portraying thrilling stories and staging spectacular dramas.

Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix, 1830

Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix, 1830

◼ Most influential work, which for choice of subject and technique highlights the differences between the romantic approach and the neoclassical style

◼ it is an unforgettable image of Parisians, having taken up arms, marching forward under the banner of the tri-colour representing liberty and freedom; Delacroix was inspired by contemporary events to invoke the romantic image of the spirit of liberty. The painting commemorates the French Revolution

◼ Accompanied by a boy ( a child of the common people) brandishing a pistol, a young man wearing a top hat (the dress of the university students of the day) and a labourer with his sword is the figure of Lady Liberty.

◼ Lady Liberty is partly nude, a majestic woman, who wears an expression of noble dignity. She carries the Tricolour, and a musket with bayonet, whilst wearing the cap if Liberty.

◼ She advances over the dead bodies of both parties – the people and the royal troops.

◼ She waves the people forward to storm the barricades while the city of Paris burns behind her

◼ The towers of Notre Dame rise through the smoke and symbolise the ancient tradition of liberty cherished by the people of France.

◼ The soldiers lying dead in the foreground offer poignant counterpoint to the symbolic female figure, who is illuminated triumphantly, as if in a spotlight.

◼ The painting does not depict the actual event, but rather, gives us an allegory of the revolution itself.

Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix, 1830

Théodore Géricault (1791 – 1824)

Self-Portrait, Théodore Géricault

Théodore Géricault (1791 – 1824)

◼ Géricault was a fashionable dandy and an avid horseman whose dramatic paintings reflect his colourful, energetic, and somewhat morbid personality

◼ Géricault's masterpieces (energetic, powerful, brilliantly colored, and tightly composed) stand to represent not only his own genius, but also the spirit of the Romantic era as a whole, and they bear within them the seed of the Realistic movement that was to follow.

◼ His paintings exhibit bright colors, dramatic action and powerful emotions.

"With the brush we merely tint, while the imagination alone produces colour." - Théodore Géricault

The Raft of Medusa, Théodore Géricault, 1818 - 1819

The Raft of Medusa, Théodore Géricault, 1818 - 1819

◼ Most ambitious work

◼ Painted in response to a political scandal and a modern tragedy of epic proportions

◼ The painting's notoriety stemmed from its condemnation of a corrupt establishment, but it also dramatized a more eternal theme, that of man's struggle with nature

◼ The Medusa, a French government vessel, had foundered off the West African coast with hundreds of men on board.

◼ Only a handful were rescued, after three weeks on a makeshift raft which had been set adrift by the ship’s heartless captain.

◼ The event attracted Géricault’s attention because, like many French liberals, he opposed the monarchy that was restored after Napoleon.

◼ Géricault went through extraordinary lengths in trying to achieve a maximum sense of authenticity.

◼ He interviewed survivors, had a model of the raft built, and even studied corpses in the morgue.

The Raft of Medusa continued:

◼ Preparations were subordinate in the end to the spirit of heroic drama that dominates the canvas.

◼ Géricault depicts the exciting moment when the rescue ship is first sighted.

◼ Darkness depicts the time before they saw the ship.

◼ Light is a symbol of hope.

◼ Artist uses chiaroscuro

◼ From the prostrate bodies of the dead and dying in the foreground, the composition is built up to the climax in the group that supports the frantically waving black man, so that the forward surge of the survivors parallels the movement of the raft itself.

◼ White cloth is a symbol of peace and the heads in the water symbolizes tragedy.

◼ His studies for this artwork taught him how to explore extremes of the human condition scarcely touched by earlier artists.