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Romanticism Painting A visual exploration of the sublime, awesome, and naturalistic elements of Romantic art.

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A visual exploration of Romantic paintings and the history of Romanticism.

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Page 1: Romanticism Painting

Romanticism Painting

A visual exploration of the sublime, awesome, and naturalistic elements of Romantic art.

Page 2: Romanticism Painting

What was Romanticism?

• Romanticism is a bit difficult to pin down, but generally it was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and reached its peak from around 1800 to 1850.

• The term refers to an idealization of reality.

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

Page 3: Romanticism Painting

Romantism came to mean Anti Classical

and is somewhat easier to think of as a feeling more than a definition.

• It represented a movement towards the sublime and the picturesque.• Nature (Awe of nature).• A political shift from the norm and Aristocratic power.• The individual as a unique spirit and creative force (genius). • Opposition to the industrialization of Europe. • An interest in the exotic and primitive.• Melancholy.• A desire for a new means of artistic expression.

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM ARE:

Page 4: Romanticism Painting

The NightmareHenry Fuseli1781

One of the first Romantic paintings and also one of the first to depict the dark terrain of the human subconscious

Why might Fuseli have titled this painting “The Nightmare”?

Why would he want to make such a painting?

Page 5: Romanticism Painting

Romanticism in Literature: FRANKENSTEIN!Shelley’s novel Frankenstein takes on the Romantic spirit as man becomes a monster wrought by human hands through the advance of science.

Other writers include: Keats, Byron, Blake, and Wordsworth sought to express beauty, glory, adventure, rebellion, and love of nature

To William Wordsworth, poetry should be "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”. From the Preface to the 2nd edition of Lyrical Ballads, quoted Day, 2

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William Turner - Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps - 1812

Turner’s paintings captured the Romantic feeling with their portrayal of landscapes as emotional beings.

Page 7: Romanticism Painting

J.M.W. Turner, The Slave Ship (1840). Oil on canvas. 90.8 × 122.6 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Turner’s painting, “Slave Ship” is an excellent example of a Romantic view of nature as being both beautiful and awesome.

Romantic artists wanted to depict nature, not as a predictable natural phenomenon, but rather as something wonderful and mysterious.

Page 8: Romanticism Painting

J.M.W. Turner Dutch Boats in a Gale1801Oil on canvas, 163 x 221 cmNational Gallery, London

Note the massive black storm clouds rolling in and literally pushing the ship over. They can be seen as the awesome power of nature or even as the dark subconscious blowing against reason.

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W.M. Turner The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, October 16, 18341834-35Oil on canvas, 92 x 123 cmMuseum of Art, Philadelphia

The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons is the title of two oil paintings by J. M. W. Turner, depicting the fire that broke out at the Houses of Parliament on the evening of 16 October 1834. Turner himself witnessed the Burning of Parliament from the south bank of the River Thames. He made sketches using both pencil and watercolor in two sketchbooks from different vantage points, including one from a rented boat.

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Turner: The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons 

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Francisco Goya - The Colossus - 1808-1812

Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry (1757) connected the sublime with experiences of awe, terror and danger. Burke saw nature as the most sublime object, capable of generating the strongest sensations in its beholders. This Romantic conception of the sublime proved influential for several generations of artists.

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Theodore Gericault: “Charging Chasseur” 1812Louvre, Paris

Why would this painting be considered Romantic?

Page 13: Romanticism Painting

Thomas Eakins The Gross Clinic , 1875

Romantic art was meant to touch the audience directly with intense feeling.

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Tiger and SnakeEugene Delacroix 1862

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Eugene Delacroix - Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi - 1827

EUGENE DELACROIX- In the midst of the activities that distract me (shooting

partridges in the woods..), when I remember a few lines of poetry, when I recall some sublime painting, my spirit is roused to indignation and spurns the vain sustenance of the common herd. And in the same way, when I think of those I love, my soul clings eagerly to the elusive trace of these cherished ideas. Yes, I am sure of it, great friendship is like great genius, and the remembrance of a great and enduring friendship is like that of great works of genius. … …What a life would be that of two great poets who loved each other as we do! (his friend J. B. Pierret, ed.) That would be too great for human kind.

-* Eugene Delacroix, source of artist quote on daily life in the woods as young Romantic artist, in: a letter to his friend J. B. Pierret 18 September 1818, from the Forest of Boixe; as quoted in ”Eugene Delacroix – selected letters 1813 – 1863”, ed. and translation Jean Stewart, art Works MFA publications, Museum of Fine Art Boston, 2001, p. 41

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Casper David FriedrichMonastery Graveyard in the Snow (Cloister Cemetery in the Snow) 1819.

Unfortunatley, this painting by Friedrich was destroyed in WWII by the bombing. All that remains is this black and white photo.

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The course of empire: Destruction | Thomas Cole | 1836

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Combat de chevaliers dans la campagne (Confrontation of knights in the countryside), by Eugène Delacroix, 1834.  

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Delacroix, (1830) A young tiger playing with its mother

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Delacroix, The Battle of Giaour and Hassan, after Byron's Poem, "Le Giaour," 1835 

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The Gleaners, Jean François Millet, the Louvre, 1857

The Gleaners is considered to be part of the Realism movement that developed after Romanticism. Here Millet paints peasant women with the dignity and structure of noble or mythic heroes.

How might the Romantic movement have influenced this work?

Page 22: Romanticism Painting

John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott, 1888, after a poem by Tennyson.

This painting is more correctly classified as Victorian, but one can also see the influence of Romanticism in it.

Do you think Romanticism is still alive today? Can you think of any recent works of art that might be seen as Romantic?

Page 23: Romanticism Painting

Andrew Wyeth – Wind from the Sea, 1947Note how the birds stitched into the curtains seem to fly in the wind. Where does the road lead to?

This is a contemporary painting by American Realist, Andrew Wyeth. Discuss how this painting could (or could not) be associated with Romantic ideas.

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END SLIDE SHOW

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