American Romanticism through Early American Art

1. American Romanticismthrough Early American Art Or at least that which I have chosen for the purposes of this unit and overview

2. Beginning with the late -18th to the mid -19th century, a new Romantic attitude began to characterize culture and many art works in Western civilization.

3. It started as an artistic and intellectual movement that emphasized a revulsion against established values (social order and religion). It emphasized nature and the Divine plan of all living things.

4. Romanticism exalted individualism, subjectivism, irrationalism, imagination, emotions, and nature - emotion over reason and senses over intellect. • In poetry it was highlighted by the use of symbols and extended metaphor. The significance of seemingly insignificant things—There is a value for everything for just how it is.

5. Since they were in revolt against the orders, they favored the revival of a potentially unlimited number of styles (anything that aroused them).

6. Romantic artists were fascinated by nature--their genius, their passions and inner struggles, their moods, mental potentials, the heroes were influenced by the natural world

7. They investigated human nature and personality, the folk culture, national and ethnic origins, the medieval era, the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the occult, the diseased, and even satanic.

8. Romantic artists had a role of the ultimate egotistic creator, with the spirit being exalted above strict formal rules and traditional procedures. He used imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth.

9. Popular poetic elements: Metaphor= something is something else; extendedmetaphor = when an entire piece represents something else; simile = something is like something else; symbol = something is representative of something else broader; personification = non-human elements are given human qualities; mood/tone = how the piece makes the audience feel through the use of language or color, etc.

10. Differences from the earlier colonial art were pronounced with less emphasis on the individual or human world and more emphasis on the natural or exaggerated world. Movement and mood and symbol are dynamic.

11. The transition was gradual and the human form was usually depicted as heroic both in Colonial and Romantic Eras