Student version romanticism intro 2011

Representing the Land- Romanticism to Now -

What is Romanticism?“The categories which it has become customary to use in distinguishing and classifying "movements" in literature or philosophy and in describing the nature of the significant transitions which have taken place in taste and in opinion, are far too rough, crude, undiscriminating -- and none of them so hopelessly as the category "Romantic.”

Arthur O. Lovejoy, "On the Discriminations of Romanticisms" (1924)

Look at the following artworks and quotes to generate your own list of the main characteristics of Romanticism

Theodore Gericault The Raft of Medusa (1819)Oil on canvas 4.91 x 7.16 m)

With the brush we merely tint, while the imagination alone produces colour.

Theodore Gericault

John Constable (UK) Flatford Mill from a lock on the Stour c 1811oil on canvas 24 x 29 cm

John Constable (UK) The Leaping Horse (1825)Oil on canvas 142 x 187cm

‘It will be difficult to name a class of Landscape – in which the sky is not the ‘keynote’ – and the chief ‘Organ of

sentiment’….The sky is the source of light in Nature and it governs everything.’

"It is the soul that sees; the outward eyes Present the object, but the Mind descries. We see nothing till we truly understand it."

Painting is ‘but another word for feeling’

John Constable

Caspar David Friedrich

Cross in the Mountains

(1808)

Caspar David Friedrich (German)Abbey in the Oakwoods (1810)

Oil on canvas 43 x 67 inches

Caspar David Friedrich (German)Wanderer above the

Mists (1817-18)

Oil on canvas 75 x 95cm

Caspar David Friedrich (German)Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon (1830-34)

Oil on canvas

Caspar David Friedrich (German)The Stages of Life (1835)

Oil on canvas 28 x 37 inches

‘Close your bodily eye, that you may see your picture first with the eye of the spirit. Then bring to light what you have seen in the darkness, that its effect may work back, from without to

within.’

‘I have to stay alone in order to fully contemplate and feel nature. ‘

‘If he sees nothing within, then he should stop painting what is in front of him.’

The artists only law is their own feelings.

Caspar David Friedrich

JMW Turner (UK) The Slave Ship c 1840 Oil on canvas 91 x 123 cm

JMW Turner (UK) The Red Rigi (1842) watercolour, wash and gouache on paper 30.5 x 45.8cm

(J.M.W. Turner Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (exhibited 1842)

JMW Turner (UK) A Mountain Scene, Val d’Aosta c 1841-45 Oil on canvas 91.5 x 122cm

I don't paint so that people will understand me, I paint to show what a

particular scene looks like.

JMW Turner

John Glover (b Uk 1767 – d Australia 1849) A corrobery of natives in Mills Plains

[A corroboree of natives in Mills' Plains] (1832)oil on canvas on board 56 x 71 cm

Eugene von Guerard (b Austria, worked Australia 1852-81 d UK 1901

Stony Rises, Lake Corangamite [also known as An Australian sunset] (1857)oil on canvas 71 x 86 cm

Eugene von GuérardNorth-east view from the northern top of Mount

Kosciusko (1863)oil on canvas 66.5 x 116.8 cm

What characteristics of Romanticism did you list?

Other resources

Constable sources:http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/constable/worksinfocus/

JMW Turner resources:http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turner/

Eugene von Guerard resources:

http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/learn/schools-resources/eugene-von-guerard/kosciusko

Turner to Monet exhibition at National Gallery of Australia

http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/TurnertoMonet/

Practise writing task:

Gericault’s The Raft of Medusa (1819) and Turner’s The Slave Ship (1840) capture the power of nature as a backdrop for the narrative of human tragedy.Use the subjective, cultural and structural frames to discuss how these works reflect characteristics of Romanticism.