The long nineteenth century
Romanticism
c. 1790–1850
Emotion, imagination and the overwhelming power of nature, set against the order of the Enlightenment.
Overview
Romantic artists valued feeling and individual vision over rules. They painted storms, shipwrecks, ruins and vast landscapes that evoke the sublime: a mix of awe and fear in the face of forces larger than ourselves.
They also responded to the upheavals of their time. Goya recorded the brutality of war in Spain, Géricault and Delacroix turned contemporary events into monumental drama, and in Britain Turner dissolved sea and sky into light and color.
What defines it
- Dramatic, emotionally charged subjects
- Nature shown as vast, wild and sublime
- Loose, energetic brushwork and rich color
Works to know
- The Third of May 1808
- Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
- The Raft of the Medusa
- Liberty Leading the People