What makes romantic art

Gericault probed the extremes of mental illness in his portraits of psychiatric patients, as well as the darker side of childhood in his unconventional portrayals of children. In his portrait of Alfred Dedreux Such explorations of emotional states extended into the animal kingdom, marking the Romantic fascination with animals as both forces of nature and metaphors for human behavior. This curiosity is manifest in the sketches of wild animals done in the menageries of Paris and London in the s by artists such as Delacroix, Antoine-Louis Barye, and Edwin Landseer.

Gericault depicted horses of all breeds—from workhorses to racehorses—in his work. His oil sketch Images of wild, unbridled animals evoked primal states that stirred the Romantic imagination.

Along with plumbing emotional and behavioral extremes, Romantic artists expanded the repertoire of subject matter, rejecting the didacticism of Neoclassical history painting in favor of imaginary and exotic subjects. Orientalism and the worlds of literature stimulated new dialogues with the past as well as the present. In , Delacroix journeyed to Morocco, and his trip to North Africa prompted other artists to follow.

Literature offered an alternative form of escapism. Watercolour expert Mike Chaplin tackles the language of watercolour in Turner's work through line, tone and colour.

Katharine Stout. Nicholas Alfrey. Main menu additional Become a Member Shop. Art Term Romanticism Term in use by the early nineteenth century to describe the movement in art and literature distinguished by a new interest in human psychology, expression of personal feeling and interest in the natural world. Twitter Facebook Email Pinterest. Related terms and concepts. Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelites were a secret society of young artists and one writer , founded in London in Symbolism Late nineteenth-century movement that advocated the expression of an idea over the realistic description of the natural world.

Neo-romanticism Neo-romanticism is a term applied to the imaginative and often quite abstract landscape based painting of Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland …. Explore this term. How To. How to Paint Like Turner Watercolour expert Mike Chaplin tackles the language of watercolour in Turner's work through line, tone and colour.

Reacting against the sober style of Neoclassicism preferred by most countries' academies, the far reaching international movement valued originality, inspiration, and imagination, thus promoting a variety of styles within the movement. Additionally, in an effort to stem the tide of increasing industrialization, many of the Romanticists emphasized the individual's connection to nature and an idealized past.

Fuseli's strange and macabre painting depicts a ravished woman, draped across a divan with a small, hairy incubus sitting on top of her, staring out menacingly at the viewer. A mysterious black mare with white eyes and flaring nostrils appears behind her, entering the scene through lush, red curtains.

We seem to be looking at the effects and the contents of the woman's dream at the same time. Fuseli's ghastly scene was the first of its kind in the midst of The Age of Reason, and Fuseli became something of a transitional figure. While Fuseli held many of the same tenets as the Neoclassicists notice the idealized depiction of the woman , he was intent on exploring the dark recesses of human psychology when most were concerned with scientific exploration of the objective world. When shown in at London's Royal Academy exhibition, the painting shocked and frightened visitors.

Unlike the paintings the public was used to seeing, Fuseli's subject matter was not drawn from history or the bible, nor did it carry any moralizing intent. This new subject matter would have wide-ranging repercussions in the art world. Even though the woman is bathed in a bright light, Fuseli's composition suggests that light is unable to penetrate the darker realms of the human mind.

The relationship between the mare, the incubus, and the woman remains suggestive and not explicit, heightening the terrifying possibilities. Fuseli's combination of horror, sexuality, and death insured the image's notoriety as a defining example of Gothic horror, which inspired such writers as Mary Shelly and Edgar Allan Poe.

The Ancient of Days served as the frontispiece to Blake's book, Europe a Prophecy , which contained 18 engravings.

This image depicts Urizen, a mythological figure first created by the poet in to represent the rule of reason and law and influenced by the image of God described in the Book of Proverbs as one who "set a compass upon the face of the earth. Blake combines classical anatomy with a bold and energetic composition to evoke a vision of divine creation. Blake eschewed traditional Christianity and felt instead that imagination was "the body of God.

Europe a Prophecy reflected his disappointment in the French Revolution that he felt had not resulted in true freedom but in a world full of suffering as reflected in England and France in the s. Little known during his lifetime, Blake's works were rediscovered by the Pre-Raphaelites at the end of the 19 th century, and as more artists continued to rediscover him in the 20 th century, he has become one of the most influential of the Romantic artists.

This painting depicts Napoleon I, not yet the Emperor, visiting his ailing soldiers in in Jaffa, Syria, at the end of his Egyptian Campaign.

His troops had violently sacked the city but were subsequently stricken in an outbreak of plague. Gros creates a dramatic tableau of light and shade with Napoleon in the center, as if on a stage.

He stands in front of a Moorish arcade and touches the sores of one of his soldiers, while his staff officer holds his nose from the stench.

In the foreground, sick and dying men, many naked, suffer on the ground in the shadows. A Syrian man on the left, along with his servant who carries a breadbasket, gives bread to the ill, and two men behind them carry a man out on a stretcher. While Gros' teacher Jaques Louis David also portrayed Napoleon in all of his mythic glory, Gros, along with some of David's other students, injected a Baroque dynamism into their compositions to create a more dramatic effect than David's Neoclassicism offered.

Gros' depiction of suffering and death, combined with heroism and patriotism within an exotic locale became hallmarks of many Romantic paintings.

The use of color and light highlights Napoleon's gesture, meant to convey his noble character in addition to likening him to Christ, who healed the sick.