Romanticism
Romanticism
began in the mid—18th century and eached its height in the 19th
century. It was limited to Europe and America although different compatriots
donated to its birth and popularity. Romanticism as a movement declined in the
late 19th century and early 20th century with the growing
dominance of Realism in the arts and the rapid advancement of science and
technology. However, Romanticism was very impressionative on most individuals
during its time. This was because it was expressed in three main aspects of life:
literature, art, and music.
In
literature, Romanticism was to some extent a reaction against the strict rules
formulated by the Neoclassicists. The first fully Romantic poetry was Lyrical Ballads (1798) by William
Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth’s The World is Too Much With Us (1802) emphasizes a world being
plagued by materialism while steadily losing its spirituality. He used Greek
mythological figures to symbolize that the nature the ancients enjoyed could
not be destroyed by the Industrial Age. John Keats’ La
Bell Dame Sans Merci (1819) is another notable example of Romanticism in
literature. Keats portrayed this work through mysticism, death, and the
emotional nature of human beings. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats described
nature in an exclusive way because landscape was the main principal in their
works. “Mind of Man," as Wordsworth observed, was a poets’ response to the
natural scenes that inspired their thinking. Despite all of this, nature commonly
was the focus of Romantic painters.
Romantic
painters rebelled against the objectivity and composure of the prevailing
Neoclassic style. The art is colorful, expressive, and full of movement. John
Constable’s Wivenhoe Park, Essex (1816),
is a pristine example of his scientific approach to capturing the qualities of
atmosphere, light, and sky. Constable used God in nature, creativity, and the
peaceful aspects of nature in this work. He is famed for his “Constable sky,”
which is the main element of his portrayal of the scene at Wivenhoe Park.
Joseph Mallard William Turner was another Englishman who is famed for his
Romantic works. His emphasis on light possibly arrives from his sensitivity to
it. He was ahead of his time with his use of light, extremities of storms,
fire, and sunsets. His Keelmen Heaving
Coals by Moonlight (ca. 1835) is an illustrious example of most of his
famous effects: moonlight, fires, and color in atmospheric effects.
Romanticism
in music ran parallel with the movement in literature and art. The Romantic
composers were highly individual. They expressed intense emotion, projected
their own feelings, and suggested exotic, strange, and vivid ideas in their
music. Composers began suggesting pictorial ideas and telling stories in their
music. An example is the distinguished orchestral inventor Hector Berlioz. His
innovative style led to his creation of a single theme classical form. In 1830,
Berlioz created Symphonie fantastique which
derived from different interests in his life. It had five movements presenting
human emotions, death, imagination, the peaceful aspects of nature, and
fantasy. Another example is the famed Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker (1892). It was a story
based on imagination, creativity, fantasy, and the emotional nature of human
beings. You might be able to see that Romantic poets and painters had a direct
and powerful influence on music
In
conclusion, Romanticism was a movement in the arts and in social thought. It
varied from one group, or individual to another, but certain characteristics
were common to most aspects of the movement. Among these characteristics were
individualism, emotional expression, rejection of rules of art forms,
imagination rather than reason, and expression of the sublime or peaceful
aspects of nature. There were also definite or specific characteristics that
Romanticists opposed. Such characteristics included empiricism, mathematical
thinking, mechanization, dehumanization, and increased materialism.
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