To understand how Romanticism changed the way society thought, you must first understand the meanings and reason behind the movement. The Romantic Movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was described as a movement in the history of culture, an aesthetic style, and an attitude of mind. (Fiero) Romanticism provided expression of their thoughts and ideas toward their own societies, which was in effect predominantly in Europe and in the United States. The movement was a reaction to the Enlightenment which provided strict ideology and rationalism. The Church had much to do with the Enlightenment seeing as if religion and the importance of God were incorporated into most aspects of their culture. Thus, Romanticism was a response to the Enlightenment Movement and their religious ideology.
Romantics began to believe that it was important to be in touch with your emotions. Romanticism was viewed as an assertion of intuitive individualism and the primacy of feeling. (Fiero) These ideas lead to more detail and expression in art. Portraits are perfect examples for the subject of the individual because in portraits you can see what the person was feeling. Artists typically painted as a reaction of what was going on around them and portraits gave them the opportunity to express what their society was like. Traditionally, records of individual likeness, portraits became vehicles for expressing a range of psychological and emotional states in the hands of Romantic painters. (Galitz)
In the book Toward a Theory of Romanticism the author Morse Peckham gives his own idea on the theory of Romanticism. He gave his opinion on the theory of romanticism because he proclaims that while there is a definition for the romanticism movement, ...
... middle of paper ...
...lt good about themselves as human beings. Because they acquired this mindset, they used their instinct to form opinions on issues that they dealt with at that time. People’s morals changed because of Romanticism and that changed the mentality of individuals for the better. Without individuality, society would yield all excitement and become very dull.
Works Cited
Galitz, Kathryn Calley. "Romanticism". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–.
Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition 6th ed. Vol. II New York: McGraw Hill, 2011
Print.
Gleckner, Robert F., and Gerald E. Enscoe. "Toward a Theory of Romanticism."
Romanticism; Points of View. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970. Print.
Curran, Stuart. The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Cambridge [England:
Cambridge UP, 1993. Print.
The romanticism era was a movement in history that mainly focused on visual arts, music, and literature. This era was happening between 1800 and 1860. The romanticism period is sometimes observed as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. One of this era’s longest lasting effects was its effect on politics and nationalism. Paintings during this time had an emotional appeal. Bringing light to the feelings of horror, wonder, and apprehension/fear. The modern term “romantic” is said to be derived from the romanticism period.
Romanticism first came about in the 18th century and it was mostly used for art and literature. The actual word “romanticism” was created in Britain in the 1840s. People like Victor Hugo, William Wordsworth, and Percy Bysshe Shelley had big impacts on this style of art. Romanticism is an art in which people express their emotion. Whatever they believed is put into a picture, painting, poem, or book. Romanticism goes deep into a mind. It is very deep thinking and it’s expressing yourself through that deep thinking. Romanticism is the reaction to the Enlightenment and the enlightenment aka the “Age of Reason” took place during the 1700s to 1800s. The enlightenment emphasized being rational and using your mind; on the other hand, romanticism focuses on emotion and imagination. It says don’t just focus on rationality and reason.
"Romanticism -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia." Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Web. 3 Dec. 2010. .
The Romanticism period started in 1789 and lasted till 1830. This time period was a major international movement, shaping modern views of art, literature, music, and other aspects in life. Romanticism was the “reaction against artistic styles of classical antiquity, which was neoclassicism.” Neoclassicists focused on the power of reasoning to discover the truth while Romantics focused on the hope to transform the world through the power of imagination. They had a deep love for nature (Furst 302). The aspects of romanticism are important; they are the beliefs of this period. The first aspect includes nature, which allows them to be free from the artificial aspects of civilization; they were with man’s true setting. Nature was there to reveal and heal individuals. An example of the love for nature in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poetry ‘Frost at Midnight’ is he is describing how happy he is that his baby will be able to see nature instead of living in the city like he did, “But thou, my babe! shalt wander like ...
Romanticism was an artistic and literary movement that began in the late 18th century Europe that stressed the individual’s expression of emotion and imagination, glorification of the past and nature, and departure from forms of classicism. The movement emerged as a reaction against the ideas
The Romantic period was an expressive and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century and peaked in the 1800s-1850s. This movement was defined and given depth by an expulsion of all ideals set by the society of the particular time, in the sense that the Romantics sought something deeper, something greater than the simplistic and structured world that they lived in. They drew their inspiration from that around them. Their surroundings, especially nature and the very fabric of their minds, their imagination. This expulsion of the complexity of the simple human life their world had organised and maintained resulted in a unique revolution in history. Eradication of materialism, organisation and society and
When many hear “Romanticism” they think of love, but Romanticism isn’t mainly about love. Yes, it may have some love, but it’s also about reasoning, nature, imaginations, and individualism. Like American Romanticism, that occurred from 1830 – 1865. It was actually caused by Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper. For Americans, “it was a time of excitement over human possibilities, and of individual ego. American writers didn’t know what “America” could possibly mean in terms of literature, which was American and not British. It questioned their identity and place in society, creatively” (Woodlief). It was characterized by an interest in nature, and the significance of the individual’s expression on emotion and imagination; good literature should have heart, not rules. Some of the most famous authors who wrote during American Romanticism were Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. American Romanticism is important because it was the “historical period of literature in which modern readers most began to see their selves and their own conflicts and desires”. Romanticism was a literary revolution.
Of all the movements in European art, Romanticism has by far the most difficult origins to pinpoint due to the broadness of its beginnings, artistic expressions, and time frame. Inspired by “nature, an awareness of the past, a religious spirit, and an artistic ideal” (Barron’s 6), Romanticism is one of the most significant influences on European culture. By looking at modern paintings, we can see the influence Romanticism has had throughout the generations. With Romanticism, artists have been able to take painting to different levels. The paintings are so profound that they allow the viewer to learn, develop, and acknowledge new aspects of life. The beginning of the Romantic era marked the birth of creative activities and aesthetic behaviors. Romanticism allows an artist to be creative, original, and authentic. Romantics view the world as more prejudiced and less balanced than others, including Neo-Classicists. What sets Romanticism apart from Neo-Classicism is the standards for Romantic artists were based on their own responsiveness while Neo-Classical artists aimed on portraying the orthodox values.
The Dream of American Romanticism The Romantic Movement seized America from 1800 to 1860. A romantic is the name given to those who value feeling and intuition over reason (Arpin 162). During this time period, Americans were migrating westward to explore the land of America. Moving towards the countryside, they pursued beauty and tried evading their daily troubles. Romantics argued that art rather than science could best express universal truth (The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: Essayists and Poets). The romantics took a less rational approach with their beliefs. Rationalists and romantics had a very different look on cities. Rationalists looked at them as a place for success. Romantics ran from these cities viewing them as a place of poverty and death. During this time Americans felt a sense of freedom from English rule. Frontier promised opportunity for expansion, growth, freedom; Europe lacked this element (American Romanticism Overview). Americans felt the need to explore science and the land of North America. This movement brought literature of fireside poetry to the American Hero. Over the course of the American Romantic Period, focusing on emotions, changed the way Americans comprehended upward mobility in the American dream, which in turn changed the way authors wrote and lived their lives. The numerous characteristics of the romantic period helped shape the era. Romantics obsessed over the idea of individuality. They felt the need to have self-expression. They felt that they could do anything with self-reliance. “One could live without fear not because it was possible to control events but because it was possible to achieve self-control” (Cullen 71). Henry David Thoreau expressed himself by getting away from everybody and ...
Nature’s beauty can be seen all around us and has been and will always be there for us to appreciate; yet the way we experience and interpret nature is ever changing. The Romantic Era was a literary movement that gave a new attitude towards nature that was unique and spiritual. The Romantic movement, beginning around 1798, and carrying on well into the mid 1800s, expanded into almost every corner of Europe, into the United States, and Latin America. The ideology of the romantic era, of being completely humanistic, was the opposite of the new ideas of logic and reason of the Enlightenment.
In the late eighteenth century, a movement spread throughout the world that was known as the Romantic Era. The works of authors, artists, and musicians were influenced by emotions and imagination. Characters in literature during that time period heavily relied on impulses to guide them in their decisions. Whether it is the logical choice or not, they followed their hearts instead. The image that Romanticism created was one of a perfect, unrealistic lifestyle because of the worship to the beauty of nature and human emotions. Although some romantic plays ended in a tragedy, it was due to the emotions that we are capable of feeling. Romanticism promoted the idea that people should follow their hearts. This, however, gradually came to an end in the mid-19th-century.
Romanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment as a cultural movement, an aesthetic style, and an attitude of mind (210). Culturally, Romanticism freed people from the limitations and rules of the Enlightenment. The music of the Enlightenment was orderly and restrained, while the music of the Romantic period was emotional. As an aesthetic style, Romanticism was very imaginative while the art of the Enlightenment was realistic and ornate. The Romanticism as an attitude of mind was characterized by transcendental idealism, where experience was obtained through the gathering and processing of information. The idealism of the Enlightenment defined experience as something that was just gathered.
... It was all about progress, political correctness and it was very controlling in the area of how people lived their lives concerning many matters. By embracing the ordinary and unknown of human existence, the romantics overthrew the limitations that were seen in the Enlightenment. Defining Romanticism is not easy as there was not a particular dominate set of beliefs nor were the styles in literature and art the same. It was a time to be yourself, to let out whatever type of personality that was within. The modern world has Romanticism to thank for much of the way we live today concerning ideas, values, love, dreams and beliefs. It’s worthwhile to mention that both era’s consisted of varieties of thought, much like it is today. We are better off today because of men like Isaac Newton during the Enlightenment and for the Romantics teaching us how to be free thinkers.
The Romantic Period was from 1784 until 1832, it brought a more brave, individual, and imaginative approach to both literature and life. During this time the individual became more important than society. Individualism became the center of the Romantic vision (Pfordresher, 423). The Romantic Age in England was a movement that affected all the countries of Western Europe. Romanticism represents an attempt to rediscover the mystery and wonder of the world (Pfordresher, 424). The French Revolution, 1793-1815, gave life and breath to the dreams of many Romantic writers; they wanted liberty and equality for all individuals (Pfordresher, 423).
Romanticism in the visual arts was first seen in landscape painting. British artists began to turn to turn to wilder landscapes and storms. Landscapes were often portrayed with dark foreboding skies or seas as their backdrop to convey the sense of worry or gloom. (Teal, 1) Romantic artists also developed certain ...