1. Romanticism

2. Late 18th-Early 19th Centuries
Romanticism emerged as a reaction to the neo-classical style and emphasized emotion rather than reason.
Romantic artists & authors extolled the virtues of feeling and simple piety over the artifacts of learning & civilization. They especially liked nature.
Romantic artists/writers valued individualism, the power of the inner spirit, and heroic traits.
Influenced art, literature, religion and music
Key characteristics..

3. 1. Primacy of Emotion
Emotion over reason. Rousseau rather than Voltaire, basically.

4. The Dreamer Caspar David Friedrich, 1835

5. 2. New view of Nature:
1. Not a well-ordered machine, as Enlightened thinkers viewed it.
2. Rather it was inspiring, beautiful, to be contemplated not mastered.
3. Nature was overpowering to humans
4. Humans were best inspired in nature; country life was to be enjoyed. Cities weren’t so great.

6. The Deluge Francis Danby, 1840

7. Moonrise Over the Sea: Caspar David Friedrich, 1821

8. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage--Italy, 1832, Joseph MW Turner

9. Caspar David Friedrich--Chalk Cliffs on Rugen

10. Friedrich--Man and Woman Gazing at the Moon

11. 3. Distrust of Science and Technology
Something can go wrong. We can’t figure it all out with science.

13. Rain, Steam, and Speed Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1844

14. 4. Greece/Rome out; Medieval themes/gothic stuff in
1. Mysteries, heroes, stories of the middle ages offered greater emotional appeal.
2. Neo-gothic architecture

15. Eldena Ruin Caspar David Friedrich, 1825

16. Winter Landscape with Church Caspar David Friedrich, 1811

17. 5. The Exotic and the Macabre
Strange and bizarre concepts, stories and events were quite the rage.

18. Saturn Devours His Son Francisco Goya, 1819-1823

19. 6. Nationalism
Love for one’s nation, culture, and heritage inspired much art and poetry.

20. Liberty Leading the People Eugène Delacroix, 1830

21. The Shooting of May 3, 1808 Francisco Goya, 1815

22. 7. Christian mysticism--interest in Catholicism
Catholicism made a comeback.

23. The Cathedral Caspar David Friedrich, 1818

24. 8. Fascination with the Exotic

25. Eugene Delacroix--The Death of Sardanapalus

26. Delacroix--Women in Algiers in Their Apartment

27. Romantic Writers/Novelists

28. Goethe--The Sorrow of Young Werther and Faust (think of the Faustian bargain)
1. Individualism and emotions reign supreme.

29. Stories of the past
Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson--Fairy tales of the past
Walter Scott--Ivanhoe--medieval English knights

30. 1.Medieval English knights

31. Gothic Literature 1. Bizarre, chilling stories.
2. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (critique of science?)
3. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre

32. Believed to be a direct expression of the soul
Poets could reveal the invisible world to others
Some themes:
Revolt against oppressive laws and customs (Percy Shelley--Prometheus Unbound)
Love of nature
William Wordsworth--nature was a mirror for humans to look to for information about themselves

33. Critics of science
Wordsworth-- nature not a cold object of study. Alive and sacred
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein--the dangers of science

34. Wordsworth--Tintern Abbey
If I should be, where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence, wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came,
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves, and for thy sake.

35. More Romantic Poetry
1. Lord Byron--the “Byronic hero” as described in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
2. Samuel Taylor Coleridge--The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

37. Ludwig Von Beethoven Influenced by the French Revolution
Music a reflection of inner feelings
Studied under Haydn
Third Symphony intended for Napoleon
Beethoven the bridge from the classical era to the Romantic

39. Hector Berlioz http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL8df-r2drM
Symphonie Fantastique
Emotion, mood, sound effects