1. Romanticism Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California 1868
Albert Bierstadt

2. “I think therefore I am.”
from Discourse on method
Rene Descartes

3. “to Create--to create--is proof of a divine presence.”
from “The American Scholar
Ralph Waldo Emerson

4. Romanticism
The rejection of the belief that all knowledge can be understood using reason, tradition, or established authority, whether that authority is religious, scientific, or political.

5. Characteristics of Romanticism
The name given to the school of thought that considered the rational inferior to the intuitive
That imagination, spontaneity, individual feelings, and nature were of greater value than reason, logic, planning and cultivation
Romanticism developed as a reaction against rationalism as people realized the limits of reason

6. More Characteristics
they believe that the imagination was able to discover truths that reason could not reach
“truths” were usually associated with powerful emotions and beauty
they did not reject logical thought, but for the purpose of art, they placed a new premium on non-rational experience
it flourished during the half century before the Civil War

7. Romanticism emphasized
imagination
emotions
the individual and his or her relationship with nature
the source of life’s meaning and value lies in the heart
a concentration on life as it might be or how it should be rather than life as it is
optimism
idealistic

8. Before Romanticism American writing had been religious economic
political

9. The First Harvest
first American born authors to receive international recognition for their use of American settings, characters, and themes
first professional writers whose works are still widely read
first to introduce fictional forms:
tales
romances
short stories
novels

10. Characteristics of the First Harvest
an interest in the American past
an emphasis on nature
concentration on the inner world of human nature

11. Romantic point of view is shown in:
Washington Irving
tales of folklore
adapted European legends
set in American landscapes
characterized by American stereotypes
reveal general truths about human nature

12. James Fenimore Cooper
used actual events in American History as settings for novels
his characters defined their personal values by their experience in the lawless wilderness

13. Themes in Romantic Literature
Authors drew form these sources
the western frontier
established civilization of Europe
their own experience

14. Attitudes and tendencies associated with American Romanticism
distrust of civilization
a nostalgia for the past
a concern with individual freedom
an interest in the supernatural
a profound love of the beauty of nature

15. American Hero in Romantic Fiction
The typical hero in American Romantic fiction is likely to have some or all of the following characteristics:
innocence
a love of nature
a distrust of town life
the need to engage in a quest for some higher truth in the natural world
an uneasiness with women who were usually taken to represent civilization and the impulse to domesticate

16. Transcendentalism German Romantic Philosopher Immanuel Kant:
The idea that matters of ultimate reality--God, the cosmos, the self--transcend, or go beyond, human experience.

17. American Transcendentalists
They sought the permanent spiritual reality behind physical appearances
They were optimistic and believed in human perfectibility
They used ideas from Europe, the Far East, and combined them with American thought
They engaged in projects that tried to create the ideal reality--Brook Farm

18. American Writers Great transcendental thinkers Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Bronson Alcott

19. Anti Transcendentalists
Their writing is Romantic in that it focuses on imagination, intuition, the power of nature and individual emotion, but they deal with the darker side of human nature.
Great Anti-transcendentalist writers:
Herman Melville
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Edgar Allan Poe

20. A Special Thanks To: The National Museum of American Art
The Hunter Museum of American Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Boston College Museum of Architecture
Great Buildings.com
Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21

22. Untitled
ca. 1876
Fidelia Bridges
watercolor on paper
sheet: 14 x 10 in.
(35.5 x 25.4 cm.)

23. PROMETHEUS BOUND,
1847
Thomas Cole
(Bolton-le-Moor, England
1801 -
1848 Catskill, New York)
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower left:
T. Cole/1847.

24. 19th-Century American
Painting of Coesa Tustennuggee

25. KNIGHT'S VALLEY FROMTHE SLOPES OF MOUNT
ST. HELENA, 1873 Virgil Williams (Dixfield, Maine Saint Helena, California) Oil on canvas

26. Near Little Point, Catskill Mountains, Thomas Doughty, c
Near Little Point, Catskill Mountains, Thomas Doughty, c , oil on canvas, 36 X 50 inches signed bottom, left of center. Gift of the Benwood Foundation.

27. Across the Prairie, Albert Bierstadt, 1864, oil on canvas,
Across the Prairie, Albert Bierstadt, 1864, oil on canvas, 127/8 x 19¼ inches, signed
and dated lower right. Museum purchase with funds donated anonymously.

28. Cabin in the Woods, North
Conway, NH
Thomas Cole
c. 1848
Oil on canvas
39 x 30 inches.

29. Thomas Eakins,
The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull) 1871 Oil on canvas; 32 1/2 x 46 1/4 in. (82.6 x cm)

30. Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church (United States, )
Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, 1883
Oil on canvas, 40 x 60 1/2"
Gift of Charles Parsons, 1905

31. George Caleb Bingham,
Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, about 1845
Oil on canvas; 29 x 36 1/4 in. ( 73.7 x 92.7 cm)

32. View at Conway
John Frederick Kensett
c. 1850
oil on panel
12 x 10 inches

33. Thorntails, Brazil
Martin Johnson Heade c
Oil on canvas
12½ x 10¾ inches.

34. The Symbol, Asher B. Durand, 1856, 40 x 601/8 inches, oil on canvas.

35. The Constitution in Boston Harbor, Fitz Hugh Lane, c. 1848-
The Constitution in Boston Harbor, Fitz Hugh Lane, c , oil on canvas mounted on panel, 15¾ x 23¼ inches. Museum purchase.

36. Trout Fishing in the Adirondacks
Thomas Worthington Whittredge
c. 1862
oil on canvas
22¼ x 18¼ inches
signed lower right

37. Architecture

38. British House of Parliament

39. Friends of Schinkel's image bank
Churches
Karl Friedrich Schinkel

40. Gothic Revival
R. Upjohn: Trinity Church,
New York,

41. J. Renwick: St. Patrick's
Church, NYC,

42. Completed in 1855, the original Smithsonian Institution Building, ularly known as the Castle, was designed by architect James Renwick Jr., whose other works include St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City and the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. This Washington landmark is constructed of red sandstone from Seneca Creek, Maryland, in the Norman style (a 12th-century combination of late Romanesque and early Gothic motifs).

43. Second Empire or Baroque Style
House,
Kennebunkport, ME,
c. 1860s

44. G.J.F. Bryant: Old City
Hall, Boston,

45. Pennsylvania Academy of Art, by Frank Furness, at Philadelphia ,
Pennsylvania, 1871 to 1876.

46. Egyptian Revival
R. Mills: Washington Monument, Washington, D.C., s

47. Ames Free Library, by Henry Hobson Richardson, at North Easton,
Massachusetts, 1877 to 1879.

48. Brooklyn Bridge, by John Augustus Roebling, at Brooklyn,
New York, 1869 to 1883.