What is Romanticism?Romanticism is an international artistic and philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in which people in western cultures thought about themselves and about their world

The ideologies of Romanticism are:Appreciation of natureEmotion over reasonInterest in art, literature, music, poetry, etc.

Romanticism also emphasizes the individual, the imaginative, the emotional, and the visionary and is a reaction against the rationality and political norms of the Enlightenment Period

Begins in England and Germany in the late 18th Century and goes until the end of the 19th Century

EnlightenmentSociety is good, curbing violent impulses!Civilization corrupts!RomanticismEarly 19cA Growing Distrust of ReasonThe essence of human experience is subjective and emotional.Human knowledge is a puny thing compared to other great historical forces.Individual rights are dangerous efforts at selfishness the community is more important.

Characteristics of RomanticismThe Engaged & Enraged Artist:The artist apart from society. The artist as social critic/revolutionary. The artist as genius.

Wandering Above the Sea of Fog Caspar David Friedrich, 1818

Characteristics of RomanticismThe Individual/ The Dreamer:Individuals have unique, endless potential.Self-realization comes through artArtists are the true philosophers.

The Dreamer Gaspar David Friedrich, 1835

Characteristics of RomanticismGlorification of Nature:Peaceful, restorative qualities [an escape from industrialization and the dehumanization it creates].Awesome, powerful, horrifying aspects of nature.Indifferent to the fate of humans.Overwhelming power of nature.

1. The Second GreatAwakeningSpiritual Reform From Within [Religious Revivalism]Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of EqualityTemperanceAsylum & Penal ReformEducationWomens RightsAbolitionism

2. Transcendentalism(European Romanticism)Liberation from understanding and the cultivation of reasoning. Transcend the limits of intellect and allow the emotions, the SOUL, to create an original relationship with the Universe.

Transcendentalist ThinkingMan must acknowledge a body of moral truths that were intuitive and must TRANSCEND more sensational proof:The infinite benevolence of God.The infinite benevolence of nature.The divinity of man. They instinctively rejected all secular authority and the authority of organized churches and the Scriptures, of law, or of conventions

Transcendentalism(European Romanticism)Therefore, if man was divine, it would be wicked that he should be held in slavery, or his soul corrupted by superstition, or his mind clouded by ignorance!! Thus, the role of the reformer was to restore man to that divinity which God had endowed them.

Transcendentalist Intellectuals/Writers Concord, MARalph WaldoEmersonHenry DavidThoreauNature (1832)Walden (1854)Resistance to Civil Disobedience (1849)Self-Reliance (1841)The American Scholar (1837)R3-1/3/4/5

The Transcendentalist AgendaGive freedom to the slave. Give well-being to the poor and the miserable. Give learning to the ignorant. Give health to the sick. Give peace and justice to society.

Basic Premise #1 An individual is the spiritual center of the universe, and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. It is not a rejection of the existence of G-d, but a preference to explain an individual and the world in terms of an individual.

Basic Premise #2The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual selfall knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge. This is similar to Aristotle's dictum "know thyself."

Basic Premise #3 Transcendentalists accepted the concept of nature as a living mystery, full of signs; nature is symbolic.

Roots in European RomanticismBegins Germany, late 18th centuryEngland: 1798 1830s Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron, etc.America: 1820s 1860s Irving, Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, Whitman, etc.

Image: William Wordsworth

RomanticismReaction again overly-rational Enlightenment philosophy, art, religion, literaturePoetry / art not a thing of logic, strict rhyming, strict meter, highest classesArt inspiration, spontaneity, naturalnessIn NATURE and CHILDHOOD we see universal, spiritual truths Image: Grasmere Village, Hill Country, Great Britain

RomanticismNature the key to self-awarenessOpen self to nature & you may receive its gifts: a deeper, more mystical experience of lifeNature offers a kind of gracesalvation from mundane evil of everyday life Image: Mont Blanc

Nature and RomanticismExternal world of nature actually reflects invisible, spiritual realitySelf-reliance: seek the truth in immediate perceptions of the worldThen one can reconcile body and soul (which is part of Universal Soul or Oversoul, source of all life) Image: Niagara Falls, Thomas Cole, 1829

The SublimeHeightened psychological stateOverwhelming experience of awe, reverence, comprehensionAchieved when soul is immersed in grandeur of natureSense of transcendence from everyday world

Image: Wanderer, Caspar David Friedrich

Romanticism in AmericaArrives in America 1820sCenter around Concord, Massachusettskind of artists colonyTranscendentalist Club 1836writing, reading, reform projectsUtopian communitiesgroups to escape American materialism

Roots in American UnitarianismEmerson a Unitarian ministerUnitarianism (Christian denomination) rises in late 1700s; formalized by William Ellery Channing, early 1800sLiberal churchbroken from strict New England CongregationalismReject total depravity of humanityBelieve in perfectibility of humanityReject idea of angry Godfocus on benevolent GodUNITY of God rather than TRINITY of Father, Son, Holy Spirit

Emersons Break from UnitarianismToo intellectualized, too removed from direct experience of GodExtend and radicalize Unitarian beliefs in benevolent God, closeness of God and humanityBring these spiritual ideas to lifeIf Unitarians believe that truth comes only through empirical study and rationality . . .Transcendentalists take that idea & add in romanticized mysticismhumankind capable of direct experience of the holy (Laurence Buell)

Transcendentalism as Spiritual RevivalIronic refiguring of Puritanism, without the theological dogmaTranscendentalists lonely explorers (pilgrims) outside society and conventionTrying to form new society based on metaphysical awarenessTrying to purify society by purifying hearts and mindsNature a spiritual manifesto

Image: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spiritual Revival Standing on the bare ground,my head bathed in the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836)

The Transparent Eyeball Image: Christopher Pearse Cranch, parody of lines from Nature, 1838

Their pursuit of the ideal led to a distorted view of human nature and possibilities: * The Blithedale RomanceA Transcendentalist Critic: Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)One should accept the world as an imperfect place: * Scarlet Letter * House of the Seven Gables

Late Life and DeathUpset in the 1860s by the coming of the Civil War, lived a quiet life with his family.His house burnt to the ground in 1872.Died on April 27th, 1882.

Henry David ThoreauEmersons most famous protg.20 year old student who wanted to put Transcendentalist philosophy in action. In 1845 he built a cottage in the woods at Walden Pond and went there to live alone. He sought to experience life on a simpler level, in harmony with nature, untied to material things. He lived there for two years and wrote about his experiences.

A copy of the one-room cabin near the Walden pond where Thoreau lived.

The cottage is not far from Walden Pond.

He wanted to live simply with nature a Walden Pond

WaldenThoreau later documented his experiment in his famous memoir Walden. Famous quotes from Walden:I went to the woods to live intentionally, to suck the marrow out of life."A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature."

Fact from FictionWhile reading excerpts of Walden it may seem Thoreau wrote his novel as a diary while being isolated in the woods, miles from civilization.HoweverThoreau often went to Concord to buy supplies.He wrote thirteen drafts of Walden before publishing it.He often had friends visit him in the evenings.He house was built on Emersons property.

Civil DisobedienceAnother work that was a result of Thoreaus Walden Experiment was his essay Civil Disobedience. Thoreau wrote the essay while spending the night in jail after refusing to pay a tax that would help fund slavery in the South.Civil Disobedience has been a highly influential work that has inspired peaceful activists such as Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr.Famous Quote: If... the machine of government... is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

Thoreau, continuedThoreau was also a fierce abolitionist. In protest against slavery and the Mexican War, he refused to pay taxes and was imprisoned for a night. The theory of nonviolent civil disobedience affected the world. Mahatma Gandhi in India and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. followed the guiding principle.

Thoreau, continuedThis movement lasted only ten years and produced only two books: Emersons Nature and Thoreaus Walden. Nevertheless, still influences today.

An Avalanche in the Alps Philip James de Loutherbourg, 1803

Sunset After a Storm On the Coast of Sicily Andreas Achenbach, 1853

The Deluge Francis Danby, 1840

Tree of Crows Caspar David Friedrich, 1822

The Wreck of the Hope (aka The Sea of Ice) Caspar David Friedrich, 1821

Shipwreck Joseph Turner, 1805

The Raft of the Medusa Thodore Gricault, 1819

The Eruption of Vesuvius - John Martin

Isaac Newton William Blake, 1795

Dr. Frankensteins Adam & Eve??

Rain, Steam, and Speed Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1844

Rain, Steam, & Speed (details)

The Slave Ship Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1842

The Slave Ship (details)

Flatford Mill John Constable, 1817

The Corn Field John Constable, 1826

The Hay Wain - John Constable, 1821

Stop

Characteristics of RomanticismRevival of Past Styles:Gothic & Romanesque revival.Neo-Gothic architectural style.Medieval ruins were a favorite theme for art and poetry.

Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishops Ground John Constable, 1825

Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows John Constable, 1831

Hadleigh Castle - John Constable, 1829

Eldena Ruin Gaspar David Friedrich, 1825

Winter Landscape with Church Gaspar David Friedrich, 1811

British Houses of Parliament 1840-1865

Characteristics of RomanticismThe Supernatural:Ghosts, fairies, witches, demons.The shadows of the minddreams & madness.The romantics rejected materialism in pursuit of spiritual self-awareness.They yearned for the unknown and the unknowable.

Cloister Cemetery in the Snow Caspar David Friedrich, 1817-1819

Abbey in an Oak Forest Caspar David Friedrich, 1809-1810

Mad Woman With a Mania of Envy Theodore Gericault, 1822-1823

Pity - William Blake, 1795

The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun William Blake, 1808-1810

Stonehenge - John Constable, 1836

Nightmare (The Incubus) Henry Fuseli, 1781

Manfred and the Witch of the Alps John Martin - 1837

Witches Sabbath Francisco Goya, 1798

Procession of Flagellants on Good Friday Francisco Goya, 1793

Saturn Devours His Son Francisco Goya, 1819-1823

Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi Eugne Delacroix, 1827

Liberty Leading the People Eugne Delacroix, 1830

Detail of the Musket Bearer Delacoix, himself

The Rise of the Cartheginian Empire Joseph Turner, 1815

His Majestys Ship, Victory (Trafalgar) - John Constable, 1806

An Officer of the Imperial Horse Guard Thodore Gricault, 1814

Napoleon at the St. Bernard PassDavid, 1803

The Shooting of May 3, 1808 Francisco Goya, 1815

Pandemonium - John Martin, 1841

Characteristics of RomanticismExoticism:The sexy other.A sense of escape from reality.A psychological/moral justification of imperialism?

Grand Canal, Venice Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1835

Massacre of Chios - Eugne Delacroix, 1824

The Fanatics of Tangiers Eugne Delacroix, 1837-1838

The Sultan of Morocco and His Entourage Eugne Delacroix, 1845

Women of Algiers in Their Apartment Eugne Delacroix, 1834

The Turkish Bath Jean Auguste Ingres, 1852-1863

The Bullfight - Francisco Goya

Charge of the Mamelukes, May 2nd, 1808 Francisco Goya, 1814

The Royal Pavillion at Brighton John Nash, 1815-1823

God as the Architect - William Blake, 1794

Elohim Creating Abraham William Blake, 1805

Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve William Blake, 1825

Faust and Mephistopheles Eugne Delacroix, 1826-1827

The Seventh Plague of Egypt John Martin, 1823

The Cathedral Gaspar David Friedrich, 1818

The Cathedral (details) Gaspar David Friedrich, 1818

The Great Age of the Novel Gothic Novel: Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (1847) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (1847) Historical Novel: Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott (1819) Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (1862) The Three Musketeers Alexander Dumas (1844)

The Great Age of the NovelScience Fiction Novel: Frankenstein - Mary Shelley (1817) Dracula Bramm Stoker (1897) Novel of Purpose: Hugh Trevar - Thomas Holcroft (1794)

Other Romantic Writers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm - Grimms Fairy Tales (1814-1816) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Faust (1806-1832)

The Romantic PoetsPercy Byssche ShelleyLord Byron (George Gordon)Samuel Taylor ColeridgeWilliam WordsworthJohn KeatsWilliam Blake

George Gordons (Lord Byron) PoemThe Prisoner of Chillon

Mary ShelleyFrankenstein

Sir Walter ScottIvanhoe

William Wordsworths Poem, Tintern Abbey

Samuel Taylor Coleridges Poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Political ImplicationsRomanticism could reinforce the greatest themes of political liberalism or political conservatism. Contributed to growing nationalist movements.The concepts of the Volk and the Volkgeist.The uniqueness of cultures was emphasized.

Bibliographic Sources CGFA: A Virtual Art Museum. http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/fineart.htm Romanticism on Artchive. http://artchive.com/artchive/romanticism.html

By: Susan M. Pojer Horace Greeley College Chappaqua, NY

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