This document provides summaries of the lectures of Visual Studies 178 regarding Romanticism. It includes characteristics of Romanticism, Romantic Artists, Romantic Landscapes, Nostalgia, and the Sublime. In addition, the readings of Blayney Brown, Vaughan (1978), Edward Said, and JM Mackenzie are ...
Romanticism
Romanticism: A movement in the arts and literature in the late 18th century and early 19th
century, emphasizing, inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual.
Romanticism emphasized inspiration, imagination and emotions. Also the quality or state of
being impractical or unrealistic. In other words, the art intended to evoke emotion for its own
sake rather than use emotion in the service of some political agenda.
Characteristics of Romanticism
- Term ‘Romanticism’ derived from Romantic languages (France/Italy/Spanish) and from
the medieval tales of chivalry and adventure written in these languages.
- Haunting nostalgia for the past
- Romantic aesthetic of ‘long ago’ and ‘far away’ is placed in settings that indicate the
passage of time when the content of a painting looks distant/far or the time seems
undetermined use this!
- Interest in the common man and childhood: Romantics believed in then natural goodness
of human which is hindered by the urban life of civilisation. They believed that the
savage is noble, childhood is good and the emotions inspired by both beliefs causes the
heart to soar.
- Strong senses, emotions, and feelings: Romantics believed that knowledge is gained
through intuition rather than deduction. This is best summed up by Wordsworth who
stated that “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”
- Awe of nature: Romantics stressed the awe of nature in art and language and the
experience of sublimity through a connection with nature. Romantics rejected the
rationalization of nature by the previous thinkers of the Enlightenment period.
- Celebration of the individual: romantics often elevated the achievements of the
misunderstood, heroic individual outcast.
- Importance of imagination: Romantics legitimized the individual imagination as a
critical authority.
The Artist – Romanticism (important changes that took place)
- The public perception around the figure of the artist changed around the 18th century,
with the shift from the feudal system to secular capitalism, the artist was no longer
supported by the aristocracy or state = thus the artist enjoyed the role of an outsider,
meagrely existing as a rebel against society = freedom!
- The artists isolated themselves from society and became an avant-garde figure and
misunderstood genius.
- Artists poor/without recognition/seeking to shock society.
- The perception arose of the artists being lazy, rude, cursed + a con artist that cheats
society.
- The artists rallied against middle-class norms, tastes and materialism that offended them.
- Artist try to express inner conflict wanted to shock + invoke personal reaction
, - Enlightenment subjectivity placed emphasis on the artist as individual, prophet, seer
rather than tradesman or craftsman.
- Godly/transcendental ability manifests in the idea of the artist as prophet
- The romantic artists are thought of more sensitive than normal people.
- The artist was seen as a visionary.
There are 3 main characteristics of the Romantic Artist
1. Individuality – closely aligned with originality/creativity
- Closely tied to “The Great Analogy”
- There are two manifestations of this myth: the creator + the maker
The creator: an inspired genius who is capable of producing art work which can be
explained solely in terms of the artefacts.
(The classical world thought artists were “filled with God”.)
The maker: the artist as imitator and technician, one who proceeds by “right reason.” Free
to discover what is already there imitating God.
Both manifestations point to the same notion in a culture that was increasingly becoming
secular/post-religion the artist imitates but replaces God as well as the creator force or
source of the world.
Romantic Philosophy: Arthur Schopenhauer
- “For the world is Hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other
the devils in it”
He sought life as painful but he proposed 3 ways of overcoming suffering:
1. Aesthetic salvation: seeing the beauty in something, or someone.
2. Ethical salvation: empathetic recognition of self-in-others.
3. Religious salvation: asceticism, the stilling of all desires, self-denial + meditation.
The Romantic artist becomes the means by which this message of salvation is made
known but is also the one in need of salvation.
(Salvation from poverty/environment/sickness/pain/self/madness)
2. Self-Destructive
Closely aligned with youth/insecurity/sense of fraudulence/self-centredness
NOTE:
The ‘beautiful’ is that which is aesthetically pleasing (pleasure/love/joy)
The ‘Sublime’ is that which has the power to compel + destroy us (fear, pain, ugliness +
death)
- The preference for the sublime over the beautiful marked the transition from the
neoclassical to the Romantic era. (death is more potent subject that life)
3. Love
Closely associated with pain, loneliness, longing.
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