Romanticism
Feeling and the elements over reason: the lone hero, storm, ruins and the national past
How to recognise it
- tiny figure facing mountains, sea or fog
- stormy skies and dramatic light
- diagonal compositions, scenes of disaster
- loose brushwork, colour over contour
- medieval ruins, Oriental and folk subjects
Why it emerged
Disillusion with reason after the Terror and the Napoleonic Wars, the shock of industrialisation and rising nationalism. Artists and poets sought truth in emotion, nature and folk tradition.
Examples
Wanderer above the Sea of Fogc. 1818 · Caspar David FriedrichA back-turned figure before boundless nature, the emblem of Romantic solitude.jpg?width=640 "Théodore Géricault · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons")
The Raft of the Medusa1818–1819 · Théodore GéricaultA fresh newspaper scandal about a shipwreck painted on the scale of history painting
The Third of May 18081814 · Francisco GoyaExecution without glory, faceless soldiers versus a man in white: the first modern anti-war picture
Liberty Leading the People1830 · Eugène DelacroixThe July Revolution of 1830; its tricolour-bearing Marianne became France's emblem
The Fighting Temeraire1839 · J. M. W. TurnerA steam tug hauls a Trafalgar warship to the breakers: the sunset of sail in a burning skyMore in this style
- c. 1823–1831 Eugene Onegin — Alexander Pushkin
- 1824 Symphony No. 9 — Ludwig van Beethoven
- 1862 Les Misérables — Victor Hugo
- 1877 Swan Lake — Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
How it spread
- 1798 Jena
- 1798 London
- 1808 Dresden
- 1815 Saint Petersburg
- 1819 Paris
- 1822 Warsaw and Vilnius
- 1825 New York, Hudson Valley
Meanwhile elsewhere
- Ife and Benin bronzes Africa
- Ming and Qing Porcelain Asia
- Latin American Baroque Americas
- Ukiyo-e Asia
- Neoclassicism Europe
- Realism Europe