DEM art&design: Romanticism

Romanticism (1700-1860)

Romanticism was more about how one feels about a state or observation. It became a way of expressing distaste of the political world, church or of the powerful.This occurred mainly after the French Revolution and also the period known as enlightenment. It didn't really take off however, till the early 1800's -1850's. While the ‘Romantics’ would not have used the term themselves: the label was applied from around the middle of the 19th century.

The biggest association to the movement I've found seems to be poetry. Some big names like William Wordsworth, Rosseau and William Blake for instance.

George Gordon Byron was born on January 22nd 1788. Lord Byron was an English poet who was a leading figure in the Romantic Movement.

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roars:
I love not man the less, but Nature more…”

In 1762 Jean-Jacques Rousseau declared in The Social Contract: ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’

William Wordsworth's As I wander is a good example of the dreamy and descriptive way the romantics used words

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The words invite images in your mind and gave way to a new way of thinking and viewing. In truth the romanticism felt they could heal and regenerate mankind spiritually.

Romantics had a strong belief in the senses and emotions, rather than reason and intellect.

English Romantic landscape painting emerged in the works of J.M.W. Turner and John Constable. These artists emphasized transient and dramatic effects of light, atmosphere, and colour to portray a dynamic natural world capable of evoking awe and grandeur.

Snow Storm—Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth, oil on canvas by J.M.W. Turner, 1842

Théodore Géricault was a painter who exerted a seminal influence on the development of Romantic art in France.

Here in the shipwreck painting he makes a point of bringing up the political implications of home and how the captain got his job so to speak because of the connections he held. The ranks of importance and emerged the overall distaste of this I guess.

The Raft of the Medusa, oil on canvas by Théodore Géricault, c. 1819; in the Louvre, Paris. 491 × 716 cm.

The psychiatric studies, and the view on the good vs bad was also up for debate and many used the romantic period as I way of challenging the system.

These are a set of painting by Géricault, who did a commission for a psychiatrist who wanted to bring to light the fact he believed the insane could not be held responsible for their actions and felt that there should be a ban on executing the mentally ill, supporting instead the idea that they should be confined to an asylum. Usually an object of ridicule, the images of gericault's portraits invite quiet contemplation, treating their subjects as afflicted with a real illness.