Romanticism and the Sublime

Caspar David Friedrich, The Abbey in the Oakwood (1808–10).

Romanticism• A movement across the arts,

including literature, the visual arts, and music.

• Height of the movement was between 1780 and 1830.

• Primarily in Europe and the United States.

ImaginationFREEDOM

REVOLUTIONLove of the Wild and Dramatic

Rejection of Reason Valorization of the INDIVIDUAL

SOLITUDE

VISIONSOUL

The Sublime

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.

-Edmund Burke. On the Sublime and Beautiful, 1757.

Caspar David Friedrich, The Sea of Ice (1823–24)

The SublimeMan sees his own potential in the grandeur of nature and in the boundless landscapes therein. He also believed that this applied to both man's freedom and lack thereof, and moving from restriction to freedom results in an inner elevation. In this way, the sublime becomes internalized, and "physical grandeur {becomes} transformed into spiritual grandeur."

-Christian Hirschfield, Theorie der Gartenkunst (trans. Theory of Gardening 1779–1780)

Caspar David Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea, 1808-1810

The Sublime

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,In which the burden of the mysteryIn which the heavy and weary weightOf all this unintelligible world,Is lightened.

-William Wordsworth, from "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" (37-41).

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, 1818

Mark Rothko, Blue and Gray, 1962

Mark Rothko, Blue and Gray, 1962

Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea, 1808-1810 (DETAIL)

Caspar David Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea, 1808-1810

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, 1818

Terms•Romanticism•The Sublime•Frame Story