Romanticism

Romanticism is a period/era that originated in Europe and developed toward the end of the 18th century and reached its peak in the 19th century. Romanticism was a rejection to the neoclassicism period and everything it was about such as order, calm, harmony, balance, rationality.  Romanticism influenced literature, paintings, music and architecture. 

Romanticism was inspired by the theme of nature because of its raw terrifying force and how unmerciful it could be and make the individual feel so vulnerable which to the Romantic artists found fascinating. Romanticism was also inspired by tragedies, death, war, rebellion and raw human emotion, It was an emphasis on the imagination and emotions, Romantist's also had an interest in the mystic and supernatural.

Romanticism also affected architecture as the buildings in the neoclassicism era were very boring and dull so they looked back on old architecture etc and wanted to create the old lost world that the industrial revolution had ''demolished''.  The photo below is an example of the architecture of Romanticism: 

This is the national museum of Finland 

An artist that showed a lot of  human emotion and imagination in his paintings was Henry Fuseli who was a Swiss painter, draughtsman and a writer on art. One of his very well known paintings named The Nightmare    painted in 1781 which portrays a dreaming woman and the visual of her nightmare. It appears to be an incubus sitting on top of the woman as she is in her unconscious state. Fuseli used strong contrasts between light and shade to create the visual effect of a dream. 

The Nightmare, (1781), Detroit Institute of Art. 

Poets, 2013, Poets.org [Online] Available at: <http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5670>

[Accessed on 19th April 2013]

Wikipedia, 2013, Wikipedia [Online] Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare>

[Accessed on 19th April 2013]

Metmusem, 2013, Metmuseum.org [Online] Available at <http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/roma/hd_roma.htm>

[Accessed on 19th April 2013]