On Romanticism

Although I like the different art movements in history for their respective reasons, the Romantic Era of the late 1700s and to the latter 1800s has held a particular appeal for me recently. Romanticism was primarily a European art and intellectual movement and was a response to changing political and social views.

Romanticism emphasized emotion and individualism, a hard deviation away from the orderly and self-restrained previous eras. It valued spontaneity, self-expression, personal feelings and reactions, as well as the wild imperfections of nature. It was a time when many people were rebelling against the overcrowding of urban areas and the exhaustion of living in an industrialized world. Romanticism encouraged artists to be imaginative, to express their emotional selves, and to return to nature. In the latter half of the 19th Century, Realism began to develop out of Romanticism.

There are too many to list all my favorites, but three of my favorite artists of the Romantic Era and whose works influence my own are:

Ludwig van Beethoven – German composer – a major influence on other composers, his works often incorporated folk songs (considered rural, not advanced, and not cosmopolitan), as well as prioritized personal expression, and emphasized a range of emotions from love to passion to spirituality to despair. (I love all of Beethoven’s works equally, but the first one I ever heard was: Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, the “Pastoral Symphony”: 1808)

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - English author – her works in part explored the importance of women’s roles in society for bringing compassion, psychological health, and social responsibility into the family, pushing for egalitarianism and recognition that compassion and kindness benefit men as much as they do women, thus creating a healthier and less violent society (Although I have only read this, her most famous work, it is amazing: Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus: 1818)

Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli) – Swiss painter – many of his works depict the supernatural, autonomous sexuality (especially that of women), and the more “negative” emotions, such as fear, obsession, and aggression, and his works heavily influenced later artists including the Romantic poets. (One of my favorite paintings is also his most famous: The Nightmare: 1781)