Romanticism in the visual arts was a movement spanning roughly the late eighteenth century through the mid nineteenth that prized emotional intensity, dramatic subject matter and the imaginative and individual vision of the artist over the calm rationality and classical restraint of the preceding Neoclassical school. Its leading painter, Eugene Delacroix, favored dynamic composition, saturated color and turbulent movement, taking subjects from contemporary politics, literature and North African travel rather than antiquity; his 1830 Liberty Leading the People, commemorating that year's July Revolution, remains one of French Romanticism's most widely reproduced images. Delacroix's rivalry with the Neoclassical painter Ingres, color and feeling against line and restraint, became one of the defining critical debates of nineteenth-century French painting. The same Romantic sensibility appeared in music of the same century, expanding the orchestra and harmonic language beyond Classical convention and drawing on literature, folklore and nationalist feeling for subject matter; Ludwig van Beethoven's later works, including his Ninth Symphony, are widely read by historians as a bridge between the Classical and Romantic periods. The term is shared with the wider Romantic movement in literature and philosophy of the same era, with which the visual-art and musical strands overlapped in spirit though the pace and boundaries of the shift differed by art form and by nation; this atlas's own coverage is of the visual-art and musical Romanticism, kept distinct from Literature Atlas's own treatment of Romantic poetry and prose.
Facts
Disputed
Start YearHistorians differ on whether musical Romanticism begins with Beethoven's middle and late works around 1800 to 1810 or only with the generation of composers, such as Schubert and Schumann, who came directly after him. End Year1910 is a conventional closing date associated with the late Romantic and early modernist transition in composers such as Mahler and Debussy; there is no agreed single end point, and late Romantic style persisted in some composers well into the twentieth century. Founded In PlaceNo single point of origin: developed across France, Germany and Britain from the late eighteenth century, with Delacroix's Paris studio its best-known center in painting 1 Key PrincipleEmotional intensity, dramatic subject matter and the artist's own individual, imaginative vision, set against Neoclassical restraint and academic convention 1 Connections
Associated With
Critiqued Here
The mature Goethe distanced himself from the Romantic movement he had helped catalyze: in a conversation recorded by Eckermann on 22 March 1825, he characterized his own classical standard as excluding what was morbid, weak and sentimental in favor of work that was healthy and containing some pith.
Source Classicism: Excerpts from Goethe's Conversations with Johann Peter Eckermann (German History in Documents and Images)
Expressed In
Source The New Grove Dictionary of Music and MusiciansStanley Sadie, editor (successive editions)
Influenced
Realism, Movements Realism emerged at mid-19th century as a direct reaction against Romantic idealism, insisting on the depiction of everyday life instead.
Influenced By
Goethe's 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, written during his Sturm und Drang period, is widely credited as a direct catalyst for German Romanticism's emphasis on emotion, individualism and nature, later invoked as a reference point in Romantic fiction across Europe.
Source The Sorrows of Young Werther at 250 (The Conversation)Eric Parisot
Neoclassicism, Movements Romanticism developed in the late 18th century partly as a reaction against Neoclassical rationalism, while inheriting some of its formal training and subject matter.
Movement Members
Central figure of German Romantic landscape painting.
Source Gardner's Art Through the AgesFred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner)
Central early Romantic-era composer.
Giselle, Works One of the defining works of Romantic-era ballet (1841).
Central Italian Romantic-era opera composer.
English Romantic landscape painter.
Source Gardner's Art Through the AgesFred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner)
Why this is disputed. Beethoven is more precisely a transitional figure whose middle and late work anticipated musical Romanticism; historians differ on how far his own output should be classed as Romantic rather than late Classical.
Source The New Grove Dictionary of Music and MusiciansStanley Sadie, editor (successive editions)
Defining ballerina of the Romantic ballet era.
Late Romantic-era composer.
Central Romantic-era composer.
Beethoven's late-period Ninth is widely classed as transitional into, or an opening work of, musical Romanticism.
Leutze's 1851 history painting is a landmark of German and American Romanticism.
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Literature Atlas: Romanticism, the same subject.
Sources
1. Gardner's Art Through the Ages
Fred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner), Cengage Learning- chapter on Romanticism
- Movement Members: Eugene Delacroix, chapter on Romanticism, section on Eugene Delacroix
- Movement Members: Liberty Leading the People, chapter on Romanticism, section on Eugene Delacroix
2. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Stanley Sadie, editor (successive editions), Oxford University Press- entry: Romanticism
- Movement Members: Ludwig van Beethoven, entry: Beethoven, Ludwig van
The Sorrows of Young Werther at 250 (The Conversation)
Eric Parisot, The ConversationInfluenced By: Johann Wolfgang von GoetheView the Source Classicism: Excerpts from Goethe's Conversations with Johann Peter Eckermann (German History in Documents and Images)
German Historical Institute Washington, German History in Documents and ImagesAssociated With: Johann Wolfgang von GoetheView the Source Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationMovement Members: Frederic Chopin, Frederic Chopin, Wikipedia summary lead, movement
was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the early Romantic period who wrote primarily for solo piano
Movement Members: Richard Wagner, Richard Wagner, Wikipedia, early career section
first achieved recognition with works in the Romantic tradition of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer
Movement Members: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Wikipedia summary lead, movement
He was a Russian composer of the Romantic period.
Movement Members: Francisco Goya, Francisco Goya, Wikipedia summary lead, movement
was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker.
Movement Members: Franz Liszt, Franz Liszt, Wikipedia summary lead, movement
was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic period.
Movement Members: Gustav Mahler, Gustav Mahler, Wikipedia summary lead, movement
was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation
Movement Members: Johannes Brahms, Johannes Brahms, Wikipedia summary lead, movement
was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period
Movement Members: Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Wikipedia summary lead, movement
as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music
Movement Members: Antonin Dvorak, Antonin Dvorak, Wikipedia summary lead, movement
following the Romantic era nationalist example of his predecessor Bedrich Smetana
Movement Members: Tristan und Isolde, Tristan und Isolde, Wikipedia, Composition history section
German Romanticism
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