Romantic painters

1. Romantic painters

2. Outline • Introduction • Part I. Romanticism • Part II. Painters in France • Part III. Painters in Europe • Conclusion • References

3. Introduction • The key belief of Romanticism was the value of individual experience or individualism • Romanticism refers to a movement in the arts flourishing in the late 18th to the mid 19th century that rebelled against academic Neo-Classicism • It was the first cultural movement to involve all of Europe in art, architecture, literature and music • Romantics sought far away places and exotic adventures; It implies the placement of intuition and emotion over reason • Sentimental and magical, feelings of melancholic, reverie, legendary, folkloric or chivalrousFusion of the elemental forces of nature, sense of awe inspiring emotion • Sympathized with the fantasy and spirituality of the Gothic, interest in passions, increasing emphasis on mood

4. Part I. Romanticism • European and American movement from 1800 to 1850 • The word romantic first became current in 18th-century English and originally meant “romancelike,” resembling the strange and fanciful character of medieval romances • Feeling began to be considered more important than reason both in literature and in ethics, an attitude epitomized by the work of the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau • In France the formative stage of romanticism coincided with the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815), the first French romantic painters found their inspiration in contemporary events • Landscapes suffused with romantic feeling became the chief expression of romantic painting in England, as in Germany

5. Part II. Painters in France • The main figure for French romanticism was Théodore Géricault (1791-1824), French painter, perhaps the most influential artist of his time, and a seminal figure of the 19th-century romantic movement in art • The powerful brushstrokes and conflicting light and dark tones heighten the sense of his isolation and vulnerability • Géricault's masterpiece, Raft of the Medusa (1818-1819), portrays on a heroic scale the suffering of ordinary humanity • The painting's disturbing combination of idealized figures and realistically depicted agony, gigantic size and graphic detail • Its depiction of a politically volatile scandal (the wreck was due to government mismanagement) caused controversy

6. Théodore Géricault. The Raft of the "Medusa". 1818-1819. Oil on canvas. 490  x 720 cm. Louvre

7. Part II. Painters in France • Delacroix often took his subjects from literature, used color to create an effect of pure energy and emotion compared to music • His Death of Sardanapalus (1827), inspired by a work of the English romantic poet Lord Byron; illustrations of various works of Shakespeare, Walter Scott, and Goethe • Energetic vibration intensified by long, nervous brushstrokes; Rejects neoclassical emphasis on form and outline • Delacroix 's masterpiece, Liberty Leading the People one of the most famous romantic paintings • Celebrates the day of 28 July 1830, when the people rose and dethroned the Bourbon king, but failed to proclaim a republic

8. Delacroix.Liberty Leading the People (28 July 1830). 1830. Oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris

9. Part III. Painters in Europe • German romantic painting, like German romantic poetry and philosophy, was inspired by a conception of nature as a manifestation of the divine • The greatest German romantic painter, Caspar David Friedrich • Landscapes suffused with romantic feeling, chief expression of romantic painting in England: John Constable and Turner • Goya (1746-1828), innovative Spanish painter and etcher • By 1786 Goya worked in an official capacity for King Charles III, the most enlightened Spanish monarch of the 18th century • The horrors of warfare were of great concern to Goya at the time of the Napoleonic occupation of Spain • In 1814 he completed Second of May, 1808 and Third of May, 1808 (both Prado)

10. Goya. The Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid. 1814. Oil on canvas, Museo del Prado, Madrid

11. A Mill at Gillingham in Dorset (Parham's Mill). 1826. Oil on canvas. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA

12. Conclusion • Toward the middle of the 19th century, romantic painting began to move away from the intensity of the original movement • Among the outstanding achievements of late romanticism are the quiet, atmospheric landscapes of the French Barbizon school, which included Camille Corot and Théodore Rousseau • The influence of romanticism can be traced from Constable through the Barbizon school to impressionism, but a more direct descendant of romanticism was symbolism • Virtually all modern art derived from romanticism • Primacy of artistic freedom, originality, and self-expression in art were originally conceived by the romantics

13. Delacroix.The Death of Ophelia. 1843. Lithograph. Louvre

14. References • http://www.abcgallery.com/liter/shakespeare.html • http://www.abcgallery.com/movemind.html#Romanticism • http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761573163 • http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761570599 • http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/romanticism.html