Romanticism - The sublime world of nature and humans' soul
- Nghi To
- Apr 14, 2020
- 12 min read
Updated: Oct 5, 2020
As we all know, Romanticism goes in a completely different way from rationalism. While Neoclassicism values reasons and truths, Romanticism embraces imagination and the universe of humans’ mind, as the mind is as sublime as the natural world. Traveling outside can have limitations, but traveling inward to understand yourself is limitless, since there are many things mysterious about the ability of humans. They believe that analysis and reasoning disrupt the best way of perceiving reality - which is through subjective feelings and intuition.
Philosophical Romanticism holds that the universe is a single unified and interconnected whole, and full of values, tendencies and life, not merely objective lifeless matter. However, Romanticism also emphasizes individualism. Each person is unique so they have to be seen separately.
In Literature, Romanticism is usually reflected through beliefs in the power of the imagination, praises on the intense beauty of nature, emphasis on individualism and nonconformity, values of independent thinking, creativity and self-reliance, and deep, emotional, passionate love, as romantic love is wistful and amorous. You can find them all in poems and novels by authors such as Percy Shelley, William Worthsword, Mary Shelley, etc. Let’s take Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” as an example. “Frankenstein” is one the most famous horror stories, though is also considered romanticism. Victor Frankenstein, the main character, is a romantic character since he represents the Romantic ideals of imagination and innovation when creating a living soul. His science is crazy - he tries playing God and gives birth to a creature - therefore, it is romantic. Besides, the story of the wretch that Frankenstein has also made the novel romantic. The more readers get to know the wretch, the better they understand its beautiful soul and miserable circumstance. Besides, the natural world described in “Frankenstein” also really romantic, as it is so wild, dangerous yet awe-inspiring. Until the end of the story, there is still a question remained controversial: Do people nowadays often think Frankenstein is the name of the monster because they are ill-read, or because Victor Frankenstein is the true monster?
In Art, Romanticism is not much different. Artists following this school of art often express the beauty of nature and humans through their works.
Casper David Friedrich is a German painter. Below is his Romantic painting “Wanderer above The Sea Of Fog”, painted in 1818.
“Wanderer above The Sea Of Fog” by Casper David Friedrich
Friedrich executes an extraordinary composition and utilizes his acclaimed method here. His utilization of shading and lighting is likewise prominent. He paints the figure with his back towards the watcher. This makes the figure something of a puzzle to the watcher — they are uncertain what he is thinking or his response to the scene that they also are taking in. By isolating the figure and the watcher, the last concentrates more on the magnificence of the surroundings rather than the man’s job in nature. For this composition, Friedrich utilizes a somewhat more brilliant palette than expected. He blends blues and pinks over the sky with the mountain and shakes out there resounding these hues. The light is by all accounts coming up from underneath the stone, by one way or another enlightening the fog. The scenery is blurred and vague, which is one of Romanticism characteristics. It opens an image and requires viewers to feel it in their own way. This wanderer feels overwhelmed by the mysterious nature before him, and so are we.
"The Sea of Ice" by Casper David Friedrich
The painting above is “The Sea of Ice” by Friedrich. It represents the accident of a ship which is drowning under the ice while the broken ice sheet by the accident has arisen upwards significantly. The top and bottom of the painting also resembles the popular color use of blue versus orange, abundantly apparent in modern day art, film, and paintings.
Moving on, let’s look into British Romanticism artists. John Constable is one of them. Below is his landscape painting “The Hay Wain.”
"The Hay Wain" by John Constable
This painting depicts a rural scene on the River Stour between the English counties of Suffolk and Essex. It includes an element of genre that is the farm hand taking his horse and wagon (or wain) across the stream. But this action is minor and seems to offer the viewer the barest of pretenses for what is virtually a pure landscape. Unlike the later Impressionists, Constable’s large polished canvases were painted in his studio. He did, however, sketch outside, directly before his subject. For instance, the wagon and tack (harness, etc.) are all clearly and specifically depicted; the trees are identifiable by species; and Constable was the first artist we know of who studied meteorology so that the clouds and the atmospheric conditions that he rendered were scientifically precise.
"Flatford Mill" by John Constble
“Flatford Mill”, another work of Constable, was painted in 1816. This is an oil painting on canvas. It depicts a working rural scene from Suffolk, as two lighter barges and their crew progress up the River Stour in Suffolk from Dedham Lock. Lighter barges were towed along the river by ropes attached to a horse. In the picture, a boy is disconnecting a rope and another sits astride a tow-horse. The rear scenery depicts the wider view of East Bergholt village, set under a towering trees and a dramatic, cloud-filled sky.
"The Fighting Temeraire" by J.M.W. Turner
“The Fighting Temeraire” is another famous landscape painting, drawn by the British artist Joseph Mallord William Turner. The painting depicts the Temeraire's final journey to a London shipyard. In the painting, the Temeraire appears grant and complete, but that was only Turner exercising his artistic license. Dominance is given to the moody sky with the ocean taking up only a small area at the bottom of the painting. But there is a sense of balance due to the higher level of activity on the water. Despite the importance of the Temeraire in the composition, it is given a relatively small area. Turner took a more ambient approach for the composition, opting to include more of the surrounding sky and ocean rather than focusing on the ship. Before the ship is a steam ship, which illustrates modernity and advanced technology. By this, Turner wants to send a message that the future has come to replace the old period. In terms of the brushwork, the sky and ocean are painted with a vast range of subtle tones scumbled on top of each other. There may also be some glazing involved. The result is ambient and dynamic, typical of the fleeting appearance you would see in life. As we can see, Turner’s strength is his remarkable brushwork.
"Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus" by J.M.W. Turner
Turner's talent is once again demonstrated through the painting above. "Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus" is Turner's interpretation of a scene from the classic mystical Greek legend Odyssey, by Homer. This large painting portrays a violent scene in which Ulysses and his crew are making a hasty retreat from the island of the blinded Cyclops Polyphemus.
Ulysses is shown standing on his galley, deriding Polyphemus whom he has recently blinded, by displaying two large flags on the mast and rigging. The orange flag bore the Greek word for 'nobody', which was the name Ulysses had given Polyphemus as his own. The other flag carries the scene of the Trojan Horse. The giant is enraged that Ulysses and his crew have escaped from his cave after tricking him. He is faintly seen through the cloud on the left of the picture, hurling huge boulders at their ship. The forces of nature have also been invoked, through the divine intervention of Neptune to bring a raging storm upon Ulysses and his men.
The whole picture has a dreamlike, ethereal quality: Ulysses, the figures of his crew, the nymphs riding the bow-wave crests, Apollo's horses in the rising sun, and Polyphemus, are suggested at and barely visible, rather than clearly outlined.
Moving our scope from Europe to the US, let me introduce you Thomas Cole, who founded the country's first art movement. Below is "The Garden of Eden", one of his famous landscape paintings.
The painting's title hints at the story of Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden. Traditionally in art, the figures of Adam and Eve are often the focal point and their figures are used to convey their despair from expulsion. However, Cole emphasizes the landscape rather than the figures. Dwarfed by the landscape, Adam and Eve have minimal detail. While their figures' posture and expression are in disgrace, as they hold hands, covering their faces, it is through the landscape that Cole is able to truly convey their despair. Using the landscape, Cole contrasts Paradise with the outside world into which Adam and Eve are forcibly thrust by a bright ray of light. The bright ray likely symbolizes God. Paradise emanates radiance and is a source of light and joy in the universe. Beyond Paradise is the outside world, which is portrayed as the opposite of Paradise. The external world is dark and ominous, as hinted in the decaying trees, volcano in the background, and the wolf devouring a deer in the bottom left corner.
"The Titan's Goblet" by Thomas Cole
The painting above is considered the most mysterious painting of Thomas Cole's. Some have described the painting as a work that defies explanation. Painted in the Romanticist style, it is an oil on canvas work. Looking at The Titan's Goblet it appears on the face of it to be a regular landscape scene. From an aerial view, there are mountain ranges and either a river or a lake. The background is of a setting sun that lights the evening sky. What changes things is the large rock goblet that sits on a rocky plateau on the painting's right side. For many, it is the goblet that changes the painting's meaning. It moves the scene from being a typical landscape into one that depicts a romantic and fictional landscape. The size of the goblet in the painting fits with the idea of its use by a Titan. Both vegetation and buildings line the rim of the goblet. Also, the goblet is full of water which has the appearance of a large landlocked lake on which there are sailing boats. Water is streaming from all around the goblet and falling to the ground. To those in the small city at the base of the plateau, these streams have the appearance of waterfalls. Looking at the goblet, everything about it gives the impression of being something from the time when the Titans walked the earth.
Federic Edwin Church is another American artist. He was best known for painting large landscapes, often drawing mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets. Church's paintings put an emphasis on realistic detail, dramatic light, and panoramic views.
“The heart of the Andes” by Federic Edwin Church
This is the largest and most significant of the works that Church made following two visits to South America in 1853 and 1857. One area of acute visual interest is the clump of silver-barked trees to the right. Projecting precariously over the central pool of water, their roots extend into thin air. Key elements of this composition seem to follow the conventions of the Romantic landscape genre rather than the details of topography, such as the layering of foreground (the detailed plants), middle ground (the jungle and plane), and background (the towering rugged mountains). Nonetheless, Church made brilliant use of these conventions, building his pictures up from a series of detailed sketches.
In contemplating "The Heart of the Andes", we get a concentrated, dramatized sense of what the lone traveller might have felt on his first encounter with the grand ridges and peaks of the South-American interior.
“Our banner in the sky” by Federic Edwin Church
This painting is arguably one of the artist's most personally revealing works. It is thought to have been executed in the year that war broke out between the Union and the Confederate forces. A break in the evening clouds, set in front of a blue, star-filled sky striped with red light, forms the image of the Union flag, with a dead tree in the foreground serving as a makeshift flagpole. This artwork provides an obvious indication of Church's allegiances in that conflict.
Borned and raised in Connecticut, Fort must have support the North. This painting is considered relating to a specific battle: Fort Sumter. It has been suggested that Church's tattered flag represents the wartorn stars-and-stripes which still hung over the fort following the battle, a symbol of defiance and hope that a united America would eventually win out.
Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his large landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion.
During the summer of 1863, Albert Bierstadt spent some time visiting Yosemite National Park, where he produced a number of breathtaking paintings of the area, including “Looking Up the Yosemite Valley”, which depicts the western side of the valley.
Bierstadt establishes the strong contrast here. In the foreground, a horse and a figure are portrayed near small rocks, a small pond and sparse foliage. The artist purposefully chose to set these shapes in miniature form and in shadow against a brightly-lit yellow and white background of majestic mountains and verdant trees. As a result, the contrast emphasizes the enormity and splendor of the landscape.
Then, In 1868, he created “Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California.” The painting, with all of its romanticism, is typical of Bierstadt, who often performed to his audience with an exaggerated, yet idealized view of Western America. Lush waterfalls flow into a small lake, barely displaying any movement from the current; allowing for the reflection of the surrounding scenery upon it. The lighting is almost certainly the essential element that provokes the feeling of peacefulness, which is generally conjured from this painting. Sun rays bursting through an intensely clouded sky illuminate the visionary perfection of the mountains and lake.
The artwork, complete with its lustrous foliage and epic skyline amidst a majestic mountain range, was one of many of his works that helped to strengthen the idea that America was the “Promised Land.”
Moving to France, the country of artistic talents, we have Theodore Gericault. Below is his most famous painting: “The Raft of the Medusa.”
The subject depicted is the artist's dramatic interpretation of the events beginning on July 2, 1816, when a French navy frigate crashed on its way to create colonies in West Africa. The appointed governor of the colony and the top ranking officers in the party left on the ship's six lifeboats leaving the remaining 147 passengers to be crowded onto a hastily made raft. When the raft proved too cumbersome, in a horrific act of cowardice and fear, the ship's leader cut the ropes to the raft. Left to fend for themselves the passengers eventually resorted to cannibalism. When rescued thirteen days later by a passing British ship, only fifteen men were left alive, of whom five died before they were able to reach land. The epic painting features a mass of figures afloat at sea, some dead, some struggling for life, in a tangled mass positioned on a crudely-made raft. The only African figure on the raft waves a cloth at the top of a pile of a few men who are struggling to get the attention of a ship in the distance (located on the far right of the horizon line). The sail of the raft is billowing in the wind while being tossed about a choppy ocean beneath a stormy sky. In creating the work, Gericault showed a complexity of composition and an almost unsettling portrayal of reality that differed from anything that had been seen before.
This painting, “Guillotined Heads”, presents a gruesome depiction of death and decay. The female head on the left has pallid white skin and closed eyes, while the male head is depicted with its mouth and eyes open staring vacantly past the viewer. The jagged, rough marks on the neck reveal the brutal and painful death these figures suffered at the guillotine. Here Gericault shows his brilliant mastery of chiaroscuro, seen in the contrasts of dark and light throughout the composition. The loose brushstrokes used to render both the faces and the cloth add to the work's dramatic appeal.
Lastly, let’s study Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix, a French Romantic artist regarded as the leader of the French Romantic school.
“The death of Sardanapalus”
The painting above depicts another dramatic historical event, the last suicidal moments of Assyrian King Sardanapalus, who ordered the destruction of all his possessions (including his harem) during the siege of his palace. Rather than be vanquished he preferred to die, and the moment Delacroix chose to depict is just before his suicide, an act more extravagant than heroic. The painting displays Delacroix's mastery of color, and in particular his use of red - which simultaneously signifies decadence and luxury but also of course blood and wounds.
In 1830, Delacroix painted “Liberty leading the People”, which features individuals of various ages charging across a canvas littered with dead bodies. In the center, striding over the heap of corpses, a bare-breasted female figure holds a rifle in her left hand and a French flag in her right as she looks off to one side. To her right are two men; one in a white shirt brandishing a sabre running beside a formally dressed man with black jacket, tie, and top hat holding a musket. To the woman's left is a young boy brandishing two pistols. The background is filled with smoke and devastation, and just the barely visible outline of Paris.
Considered to be Delacroix's most famous work, it is one of many based on a true historical event, in this case a short-lived, days-long revolt against the French monarchy which ended the reign of Louis Philippe and helped establish the Second Republic. Though he did not participate in the rebellion, Delacroix wanted to honor the brave revolutionaries in a painting.
Notes: Something I have learned!
Romanticism is different from the idea of Transcendentalism. Although they closely relate to each other, there are certain concepts that are emphasized differently in each one. These are views on a person’s individuality, nature, philosophies, or spirituality. Transcendentalism believes that God is the center of the universe, and encourage humans to live simply, give up on details and pursuit of money, be closer to nature in order to reach God. Meanwhile, Romanticism matters how we look at our daily lives.
“Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.” (Eugene Delacroix) It is how you look at live that matters, not trying to find a perfect image to call it “romantic.”
Work Consulted:
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