Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement that emphasized emotion, imagination, and freedom from classical conventions. It was characterized by imaginative and subjective approaches to nature, exotic subjects, and emotional intensity. Romantic artists and writers believed in the artist as a creative genius and valued common language and mythology over high culture. Key Romantic painters included Gericault and Delacroix in France, who depicted intense emotions through dramatic use of color and brushwork, and Friedrich in Germany, whose symbolic landscapes conveyed a mystical and melancholy sense of nature. In England, Constable, Turner, and the Pre-Raphaelites painted landscapes and legends influenced by feelings and medieval styles.

1. Romanticism
Revision

2. Characteristics
 Romanticism is characterised
by:
 Imaginative and subjective
approach
 Emotional intensity
 Dream-like or visionary quality
 Suggestion states or intense
feelings, mystical

3. Subjects
 The subjects chosen tend to be:
 Nature, especially wild and
mysterious
 Exotic
 Melancholy
 Melodramatic facts that evoke
passion

4. Other Characteristics
 It stressed emotion,
imagination and freedom
 Denied previous social
conventions such as the
position of the aristocracy
 Influenced by the Illustration

5. Values
 Cult of the artist as a genius
 Emphasis on common
language
 Depiction of apparently daily
experience
 Experimentation with non-
classical forms

6. Interests
 The past
 Old forms
 Ruins in contact with nature
 Mythic and legendary
material
 Low culture was higher
valuate that high culture

7. France
 It is the time of Napoleonic
wars so it was inspired in
contemporary events
 Style is colourful and
emotional
 Main artists are:
 Gericault
 Delacroix

8. France
 Gericault:
 He emphasized the heroism and
sufferance
 Powerful brushstrokes
 Conflicting light and dark
tones
 Sense of isolation and
vulnerability
 Work: The Raft of the Medusa

10. France
 Delacroix:
 Subjects frequently taken from
literature
 Use of colour to create an effect of
pure energy and emotion
 Half-tones derived from juxtaposing
to a colour its complement
 Energetic vibration and nervous
brushstrokes
 Works: Death of Sardanapalus,
Freedom Conducting the Country,
Massacre at Chios

12. Germany
 Painting was inspired by the
conception of nature as a
manifestation of the divine.
 Symbolic landscape paining
 Authors:
 Friedrich
 The Nazarenes:
 Attempted to discover the style and spirit of
medieval art
 Overbeck and von Schwind (Germanic
mythology and fairy tales).

13. Germany
 Friedrich:
 Meditative landscaped
 Paintings of lucid and
meticulous style
 Subtle mystical feeling and
sense of melancholy, solitude
 Romantic pessimism

15. England
 Landscapes were essential
 Innovative styles with simplicity of
style
 Influences of William Blake
 Constable
 Landscapes influenced by feelings
 He worked in open air
 Luminous colours
 Thick brushwork.

17. England
 Turner:
 Radical pictorial vision
 Concerned with atmospheric
effects of light and colour
 It is frequent to find in his works
clouds, mist, snow
 Objects look to dissolve in his
works

19. Late Romanticism
 French Barbizon School:
 Quiet and atmospheric landscapes
 Authors: Corot and Rousseau
 Pre-Raphaelites:
 They revived the medieval mission of
the Nazarenes
 Arthur’s legend and feminine images
 Authors: Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, Millais

20. Rosetti
Millais

21. Influence
 Barbizon School is linked to
Impressionism
 Symbolist movement:
 Subjectivity
 Imagination
 Dream-like imagery
 Freedom in Arts continues
nowadays.