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ROMANTICISM

Nature of the period

Romanticism, unlike the other "isms", isn't directly political. It is more intellectual. The term itself was coined in the 1840s, in England, but the movement had been around since the late 18th century, primarily in Literature and Arts.

English Romanticism started in the 1740s.The word Romanticism derives from the French word "Romance", which referred to the vernacular languages derived from Latin and to the works written in those languages.

[…] attitude or intellectual orientation that characterized many works of literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography in Western civilization over a period from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism. It was also to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism in general. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental.

Among the characteristic attitudes of Romanticism were the following: a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature; a general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect; a preoccupation with the genius, the hero, and a focus on his passions; a new view of the artist as a supremely individual creator, an obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era; and a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the weird, the occult, the monstrous, the diseased, and even the satanic.

The general romantic's dissatisfaction with the organization of society was often channeled into specific criticism of the Bougeois society and the feeling of oppression was frequently expressed in poetry. Political and social causes became dominant themes in romantic poetry and prose throughout France and other parts of Europe, producing many vital human documents that are still pertinent.

To be extreme and flamboyant and unusual and violent even at the risk of becoming grotesque was the desire of every young Romantic. The Romantics were, in fact, bourgeois origins, who were trying hard to escape from their own shadows.

ENGLAND’S HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

George III led England against Napoleon to save the independence of various states in Europe. Napoleon tried to ruin the English Navy by a naval blockade. England obtained two famous victories against Napoleon at Trafalgar in 1805 and at the battle of Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington. The four victorious powers (England, Austria, Prussia and Russia, met at the Congress of Vienna (1814 – 1815) to redefine the territorial map of

Europe. After this long period of war England was hit by heavy taxation, price rises, unemployment and social unrest in town and in the country.

George IV reigned in a period of reforms:

- Catholics obtained the same rights as the protestants except in a few cases.

- The civilian metropolitan police was created by Sir Robert Peel.

Other important events of this period were:

- the abolition of slavery in the British colonies

- the introduction of system of national education

- the Factory Acts by which the employment of children under nine was

forbidden by the law

SOCIAL CONTEXT

The main social changes were among the working classes.

The principal social events were:

- an enormous increase in production

- the increase of wealth

- more work and better social situation in the north

- periods of overproduction and periods of depression

- revolts of the Luddities

- Robert Owen had established a textile factory where he reduced working

hours, improved housing, limited child labour and created an insurance for old

or sick workers and their families

- when Napoleonic wars ended inhabitants of England were forced to emigrate

to America or Australia

- when foreign trade increased, the unemployment slowly decreased

- women began to compete in work with men and ended by gaining more and

more independence.

- slavery was definitely abolished in 1833.

British Romantic Art in Society

Styles and Techniques

British Romantic Art typically uses nature and sympathetic real life experiences to emphasize emotion, in similar manners as the poets from Romanticism Poetry and the musicians from Romantic Music. Nature can be portrayed as a serene landscape. In other paintings, nature’s uncontrollable power and danger is portrayed in shipwrecks and man’s struggle with nature. Romantic artists used their art to portray their love and connection with nature. Accurate studies of birds, animals and insects reflected man's interest in the mysterious and hidden secrets of nature. This return to nature, this emphasis on the power of the individual, must be seen as a reaction to the mechanisation and depersonalisation brought about by the Industrial Revolution in England. This had brought with it a rift between capital and labour, between employer and employee, thus establishing a new hierarchical social order.

This renewed interest in nature was further stimulated by archaeological and scientific discoveries, expeditions and narratives in which the romantic aspect of strange and distant places was described or dramatised, as may be seen in the works of Wordsworth or Byron.

The philosophical writings of Rousseau and Burke were further encouragement to man to seek hidden meaning behind the surface of physical reality.

Their painting techniques generally bright, vibrant colors, or paler and darker tones that do not provide contrast within the painting, but are rather blended and create a softer image. Many times the painter’s brush strokes do not create precise lines, but are vague and provide a “blurred” perception.

Although nature was an important concept of the Romantic era, there were other themes and emotions that many of the Romantic artists focused on. Emotions were expressed over reason and senses were expressed over intellect. This philosophy of portraying emotions and senses was primarily developed out of a disgust of the focus on reason during the Enlightenment, and wanted to bring art back to feelings and sentiments. They were intigued by moods, heroes, the inner struggles, the genius, the passion, the mysterious and unknown, the medieval, the exotic and even the "satanic".

In the pre-Romantic period, landscape painting in England was characterised by two distinctive approaches. On the one hand there was the more classical approach and there was the approach in which poetic imagination played a superior role.

Other sources of inspiration to the Romantics were the Bible and works of Chaucer, Milton, Spencer and Shakespeare. These stimulated the imagination of the new generation of artists, attracted as they were by dramatic events from the past, by emotional experiences, and by the mystical, the irrational and the supernatural.

After 1815 the British market was flooded with works of art belonging to Continental collectors. In England there was a preference for 17th century Dutch landscape paintings. Both Turner and Constable learnt a great deal from Dutch landscape painting.

JOHN CONSTABLE

(John Constable 1776-1837) was one of the great landscape painters during England's Romantic period. He was known mainly for his early paintings of Dedham, a place near where he lived. He started out as a corn merchant like most of his family until he was able to attend Royal Academy School. After his painting of his fiance, Maria Bricknell, he started a series of landscapes that were six feet tall. Constable's style was different from Turner in that he did not use his imagination at all; rather he took the time to observe nature around him and meticulously painted what he saw. When painting, Constable was known for using varying tones of color, short brush strokes, and the colors fusing together creating one hue. This technique gave his paintings a luminous quality. Constable also discovered that when light is reflected off of a glossy surface, the color is temporarily destroyed; because of this some of his paintings have flickers of light that are today known as, “Constable’s snow”. The overall message that Constable wanted people to receive was his personal view of nature. He wanted people to appreciate nature as much as he did and to form their own opinion and view as to what nature meant to them.

WILLIAM TURNER

Like Constable, W Turner (1775-1851) was also attracted to the nature and the effects of light. Initially he made accurate sketches of delicate Gothic ruins, reflecting his Romantic temperament. Although he studied landscape, plants and rocks in detail, it was the spiritual content rather than the natural appearance that fascinated him. But instead of creating an Arcadian fantasy of harmony and discipline, Turner saw the elements of nature as forces that threatened to destroy man. Like his Northern contemporaries, especially Friedrich, he saw human passions as increasingly subjugated to the natural elements. Man he saw as an intruder faced with violent storms, devastating avalanches, icy glaciers and turbulent seas: for instance Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps (1812). Here, Turner's vision of nature differs from French Romantic painting, in which man remains the pivot and dominates the scene.

He had his own technique of painting with water colors; where he poured wet paint on the canvas until it was saturated. Turner also travelled to Italy and the lower countries during his lifetime, influencing his love and curiosity for nature. It is to be noted that many of his masterpieces involved fires, storms, and glowing light, and it is through these particular paintings that he was able to express “the forces of nature and their importance for mankind.”

In his suppression of the object for the sake of an idea, and in his use of colour and paint, Turner was well in advance of his times. The emphasis that he, like Constable, placed on the inconstancy of life and nature, was nevertheless appreciated by younger contemporary artists, who also attempted to recreate nature according to a personal vision.

HENRY FUSELI

Henry Fuseli was born in Switzerland, but spent the majority of his life in England. While living in Rome, Fuseli became inspired by the works of the famous Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel. Also, before returning to London, Fuseli grew to admire the many plays by Shakespeare. Infact, many of his paintings where inspired by plays such as Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. His work is often characterized as containing displays of the darker side of humanity, nature, and the supernatural. Some of the most famous paintings include The Three Witches , Hamlet and The Ghost ,The Nightmare. These emotional and dark images commanded the interest of the public. Fuseli quickly earned a good reputation, and became a successful artist. In 1799 he was able to open his first gallery, the Milton Gallery, which was named after one of his most admired poets John Milton. However, when Fuseli died his paintings began to lose the public's interest, and his work was neglected until the Surrealists and Expressionists revived and appreciated his style. Today, Henry Fuseli is considered to be one of the fathers of the Gothic painting style.

WILLIAM BLAKE

William Blake was known throughout the Romantic period for his popular poetry and his Gothic paintings.

He was a close friend of Henry Fuseli. His dramatic paintings were often embedded with images of great fantasy on a grand scale that represented his imaginative and eccentric spirit. Blake painted some of his most famous paintings when he was commissioned to paint scenes from the bible.

William Blake) shared Fuseli's disregard for natural appearances, and often used the Bible, in particular the Book of Revelation, and also Romantic poetry as a source of inspiration. With an imaginative sense of design he transformed natural phenomena into the supernatural. Like a medieval illustrator he created symbols for mystic concepts. Physical reality existed for him on a lower plane than did the sublime world of art and fantasy. To Blake the world of the imagination was the world of eternity; he created in his illustrations an intensely private symbolism.

His preference for Gothic art, which he declared to be superior to Classical art, stemmed from his disapproval of the restrictions that conventional representation, and the formulas and rules associated with it, would have imposed on him.

Towards the end of the Romantic period artists such as Hunt, Rossetti and Millais established the Pre-Raphaelite group. These artists were also associated with Romanticism in the sense that they fervently wished to escape mediocrity and the everyday. They found their inspiration in the allure of foreign countries, as well as in antiquity, Shakespearean literature and spiritual sources. Like the German Nazarenes, the Pre-Raphaelites launched their own reconnaissance of early Italian art because they were dissatisfied with the decadence, triviality and frivolity of contemporary art and called for a return of truth to nature and the visible world.

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