Characteristics of Romanticism in the History of Art.
Characteristics of Romanticism in the History of Art. To characterise Romanticism within the fine arts one must consider the historical background from which this movement manifested, as it plays such an influential role in the Romantic artist's development of subject matter and style. The movement itself began around the beginning of the 19th century, and is often dated 1775 - 1830 it is important to note that this was a period of change and revolution in human rights, and the main countries this movement manifested in were Germany, Britain and in France during the French Revolution of 1789. This political and cultural revolution had a major affect on all of the arts as well as the visual arts; as artists began to revolt against Neo-Classical and academic traditions and look inwards into their own experience and imagination. Imagination is one of the most prominent themes in the Romantic Movement as artists began to direct their attention towards subjects other than the rigid definitions of genres within the academic world of painting, and also to the simplicity of the Medieval artists. Instead, artists turned to literature (especially poetry), political and historical events as well as individual and imaginative sty
les of depicting this subject matter. These connections are especially distinct in paintings such as "The Ancient of Days" completed in 1794 as a visual image complementing his poem "America, a Prophecy", which depicts one of Blake's own visions of the Lord measuring the world with a compass. This depiction of the storm totally engulfs the stark presentation of human nature and suffering happening in the foreground where the remains of the soldiers fight over clothes and supplies in a last attempt at survival. When observing, "Snowstorm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps", for example, Turner devotes two thirds of the canvas to the fierce, claw-like image of the storm, elevating its power through the almost abstract execution of his brushwork. This enclosed and claustrophobic atmosphere has been emphasized through the way that Turner has employed layer upon layer of light paintwork to communicate the force and mass of the waves, creating an ominous mood of destruction and violence. It has been previously suggested that the Romantic artists looked towards nature, literature and contemporary tragedies for inspiration to create their individual responses to these themes, another subject, which greatly interested Romantic artists, was the mystical and exotic themes in Mythology. Delacroix was influenced by Byron's poem "Death of Sardanapals" to create his own visual interpretation of the myth. The reoccurring themes of nature in these paintings manifested partly from the Romantic belief that to understand themselves and mankind they must go back and learn from nature, this also applied to the Romantic painters of the Revolution. The main composition of the painting is in a dramatic pyramidal shape as the men lift up one of their fellow sailors who is desperately waving a shirt to capture the attention of a boat in the distance. The artists of the Romantic Movement, as suggested, no longer wanted to be constrained to the proscribed theories and practices of the Academies; who thought that everything that needed to be learned could be done so by observing the Roman Masters, and wished to create their own imaginative responses equalizing them with the authors and poets of the Romantic Literary Movement. The visual images that manifested from these subjects included an equally powerful depiction of nature versus man, the forgotten suffering of historical events, indeed most subjects that had a strong impression and emotional influence on the artist's imagination. He depicts the shocking evidence of cannibalism as a sailor to the left of the painting holds the remaining bones of one of his fellow sailors; the other dead and dying men are left scattered across the raft in a chaotic and dramatic fashion displaying the suffering and evil of their fate. In Gericault's painting we see a man-made raft full of sailors who were left behind by their captain after the ship had floundered. Romantic elements include themes that link to nature and the natural, exploring human psychology through the study of the individual and the natural order of the world.
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