We explain everything about art in Romanticism and what its history was like. Also, what are its general characteristics and some examples.
Romanticism was an artistic movement that valued human subjectivity.
What was Romanticism?
It is known as Romanticism an artistic and philosophical movement that emerged in Europe from the end of the 18th century. It was a reaction to the prevailing paradigms of rationalism and Neoclassicism that the Enlightenment brought with it.
The romanticism opposed faith in human reason and the orderly spirit of the time, which held more or less fixed and rational rules for art and thought. On the contrary, he valued subjectivity and human feelings, creative freedoms and genius, that is, originality.
This movement was fundamental in the cultural history of the West and over time it gave rise to new movements, especially musical, pictorial and literary. Its values were revived and taken to the limit in the 20th century, with surrealism. However, its mark still remains in our way of conceiving art, life, passions and love.
See also: Neoclassical art
Origin of Romanticism
Romanticism is the first cultural movement that covered the whole of Europe.
The romanticism It first emerged in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain.
It was so successful that It soon spread throughout the West.including the Americas.
It is considered the first cultural movement to cover Europe in its entirety. Its heyday came later, approximately between 1800 and 1850.
The origins of the ideas of Romanticism date back to the French Revolution and the idealism of liberty, fraternity and equality that drove it.
Also dates back to the pre-romantic movement that emerged in the 18th centuryThis was opposed to the regulated and conventional world of the Enlightenment and Neoclassicism prevailing in art academies.
In this sense, there was also closely linked to strong nationalist sentimentswho saw enlightened cosmopolitanism as a threat.
Origin of the term Romanticism
The term “Romanticism” It was first used at the end of the 18th centurywhen the literary critics August and Friedrich Schlegal wrote their Romantic Poetry (“Romantic poetry”).
From then on, the name became popular in Europe and was assumed by the artists of the movement themselves. Even the English romantic, William Wordsworth, maintained that they opposed “the romantic harp” to “the classical lyre.”
Recovery of the medieval
In Romanticism, Christian themes reappear, such as the flight from Sodom.
During the Enlightenment, the values and forms of Classical Antiquity had re-emerged, in a movement that was called Neoclassicism. For the Romantics, part of the reaction to the Enlightenment was to value what that movement had rejected: medieval culture.
Thus, we returned to the medieval imagination and national folkloric traditions, but also to Christian themes and feelings. With them, Nostalgia for lost paradises reappears.
Exaltation of the individual
Instead of the rational, objective and logical world of the Enlightenment, Romanticism exalts the individual and the subjective. Thus genius, feelings appear as values and the entire unconscious world of human beings, such as dreams, instincts or mysticism.
It was sought to express individuality through originalitywhich was valued more than tradition. For this reason, unfinished, imperfect and open work was preferred over completed and perfect work.
Within the subjective experience suffering and passions are also enhanced, which represented a powerful and overwhelming aspect of human nature. They tell fiery and irrepressible loves, tragic and irremediable stories, with the presence of supernatural or religious entities.
Literature in Romanticism
Edgar Allan Poe was one of the authors of Gothic fiction.
The romanticism It marked a revolution in literature.. New genres were explored, such as gothic or horror novels, adventure novels and historical novels. Legends, traditional stories and medieval genres such as ballads and romances were also revived.
Also the writing of memoirs and autobiographies became widespreadas well as costumings. In poetry, the liberation of language from classical standards was sought.
The most cultivated genre was theatre, in which nationalist sentiments were imprinted and nourished by the popular imagination. The dramatic genres of melody or romantic drama were born, in which prose and verse are mixed, and do not respect Aristotelian dramatic units.
This renewal of expressive forms had long-term effects, since laid the foundations for fertile post-romanticism and Latin American modernism.
It may be useful to you: Literary Romanticism
Music in Romanticism
musical romanticism begins in Germany with Ludwig van BeethovenHis work inaugurates a sense of music as an art that expresses through sounds the wide range of human feelings. He developed novelistic, dramatic and imaginative compositions, with an emphasis on epic rhythms and nationalistic themes.
Painting in Romanticism
Painters like Goya represented the social reality of nations.
Romantic painting abandons classical motifs to commit to the political and social reality of nationsIt is an art inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution of 1789. The recovery of folklore and national traditions was also imposed.
Romantic painting lasted for almost a hundred years, during which three major periods were distinguished:
- Preromanticism. Strongly influenced by the Rococo, he exalted ruins and had an idyllic vision of the landscape. He depicted nocturnal scenes, cemeteries and other landscapes in which passion and feeling were exalted.
- Romantic heyday. The peak of romantic painting occurred between 1820 and 1850, with a predominance of themes related to modern history, as well as a new conception of landscape. France was the main scene of this period.
- Post-romanticism. From 1850 to 1870 the last period of romantic painting took place, when the movement weakened and gave way to a certain mannerism, or in Latin America to costumbrismo.
Architecture in Romanticism
Works by Charles Garnier reflected the taste of the new French bourgeoisie.
The architecture of Romanticism It became relevant more than anything in the 19th century. He recovered the taste for medieval buildings, especially in England, with the works of John Ruskin (1819-1900), William Morris (1834-1896) and Edward Pugin (1834-1875).
In France, however, The works reflected the tastes of the new bourgeoisie resulting from the Revolutionwhich adopted the train as its main symbol of modernity. Its main exponents were Charles Garnier (1825-1868) and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879).
Main representatives of Romanticism
Some of the most important works of Romanticism are:
- Literature. Johan W. von Goethe (1749-1832), Friedrich Schiller (), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Lord Byron (1788-1824), John Keats (1795-1821), William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel Coleridge (1772-1834), Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), William Blake (1757-1827).
- Music. L. van Beethoven (1770-1827), Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826), Félix Mandelssohn (1809-1847), Franz Schubert (1797-1828), Franz Liszt (1811-1886), Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849 ), Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901).
- Paint. Francisco de Goya (1746-1828), Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), William Turner (1775-1851), Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863).
Decline of Romanticism
Romanticism is linked to erotic courtship and courtly love.
The romanticism It lasted until the mid-19th century and left a deep and indelible mark on Western culture. Eventually, its forms gave way to other artistic movements of similar interests.
At the beginning of the 20th century these interests were taken up by the Vanguards. This new artistic movement He also defended creative freedom and the unconscious aspects of art.
However, Romanticism also influenced culture in other aspects. His name derived from a series of adjectives (such as “romantic” or “romance”) used for everything linked to erotic courtship and courtly love, in its most conventional meaning. Hence the talk of “romantic novels” for love novels.