What was the Romanticism Period?

    Romanticism. An artistic movement in Europe starting around the late 18th century in contrast to the neoclassical era. The neoclassical era was all about symmetry and the beauty in reason. The art during this period was showcasing how mechanical and reasoned the universe is.

     Romanticism was all about demonstrating that there is more to the universe than reason and that the world is a beautiful and risky place. This period affected music, architecture, paintings, and most other artistic areas. Hector Berlioz wrote a symphony telling a semi-autobiographical and somewhat hallucinatory story about romantic sufferings. His symphony Symphonie Fantastique used different instruments to evoke different emotions throughout the story and recurring themes like the ide’e fixe were used to mark the appearance of the romantic subject, the woman who inspired Berlioz.

The Sea of Ice

     Caspar David Friedrich painted The Sea of Ice among other dark paintings. Dark, meaning the absence of direct sunlight or elegant pastels in his landscapes, Friedrich worked to show the adventurous, edgy, and risky side to nature. This was the theme among painters in the Romantic period.

Maritime Scene

     Paintings like this were beautiful, but adventurous. Compare popular fantasy stories in the modern day. The fantastical worlds in stories can be cherry blossom trees, swinging on a sunny day, pixies and fairy dust. On the other hand, these stories can be full of dragons, quests, knights and swords, danger and mystery. Both things are somewhat true to nature as well. This was portrayed often in the Romantic period to evoke emotion and go beyond reason and careful calculations.

Neoclassical Landscape

Romantic Landscape