It was thinking according to these very ideas that Thomas Cole’s talents as a painter came forth, with paintings that in Europe would be called “picturesque”. With the Romantic ideals such as strong emotion stressed a source of aesthetic experience, and an emphasis on emotions such as awe in confronting sublimity in untamed nature, Thomas Cole brings the qualities of Europe’s Romantic Movement into America’s artistic culture (“Romanticism”). Thomas Cole had not only become an icon of American artistic culture, but had become a conveyer of European artistic culture as well. With his beautiful pieces of art acting as a medium between cultures, and establishing himself as the icon for American landscape painting, Thomas Cole was and is considered the founder of the “Hudson River School”. The term is referring to the foremost representatives of nineteenth century American landscape painting (Avery and Roque).
This dichotomous experience is evidently illustrated in the work of John Keats, particularly in his poems Ode to a Nightingale, in which Keats grapples with the transcendent beauty of the nightingale’s song versus the bleak reality, and La Belle Dame sans Merci where the allure of imagination is set against its depleting quality. Although not of Romantic context, the novel Possession by A.S. Byatt explores the quest for artistic liberty whilst dealing with the qualms of contemporary life. Eugene Delacroix’s painting Liberty Leading the People depicts the upsurge of idealistic passion in the French Revolution, while expressing also the reality of revolution. In his poem Ode to a Nightingale, Keats is both enchanted inspired by the ethereal beauty of the nightingale song. For the Romantics nature was ‘a stimulus for the poet engage in the most characteristic of human activity, that of thinking’.
This gives the groundwork to the idea that nationalism is a natural thing that cannot just be stifled by humankind, but is inevitable and good for the world. Napoleon Bonaparte was the true driving force of romantic nationalism. Napoleon was able to gather the French into a nation that through the eyes of the rest of Europe were able to conquer all who opposed it. This inspired the people of Europe to bring about nationalistic movements. Romanticism paved the way for European nationalism.
The Art Nouveau movement led Klimt to explore with the theme of femme fatale in his work, using gold and symbols to create a sense of eroticism. Gustav use of gold and symbols in his paintings became known as his "golden phase," sparking positive responses from the art world. Gustav Klimt was one of the greatest representatives of the Art Nouveau movement in Vienna. Art Nouveau was an international movement of many different styles of art—especially the decorative used most often by Klimt. According to Peter Vergo, a professor of art history and theory, Gustav is still "considered one of the greatest decorative painters of the 20th century."
Rococo is a style of art that began in the early to mid-18th century and was closely followed by the neoclassical art movement. Rococo art originated in France in the early 18th century and was itself an evolution of the earlier style of baroque art. Rococo art emphasized elaborate, detailed, and ornamental elements in sculpture and architecture, and more realistic representations in paintings. Coming off the era of baroque art, which was very much influenced by religion and endorsed by the Catholic Church, rococo art thrived in a time where secularism was becoming a more dominant theme in social attitudes. This Age of Enlightenment saw a shift toward loosened morals and a light-heartedness in the social climate that was, in turn, reflected in the art of that time period.
Romanticism Romanticism was begun in England and Germany in the 1770’s, and later on it had spread throughout Europe by the 1820’s. Romanticism emphasized emotional and spontaneous approaches. It was formed to go against Neoclassicism. Romanticism was focused on imagination, emotion and freedom by the way of individualism. Artists emphasized their personal, emotions and dramatic aspects of literary and historical subject matter.
Defining Romanticism Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “Music, of all the liberal arts, has the greatest influence over the passions” (Machlis et al., 2003). This quotation clearly captures the essence of romanticism. Romanticism is characterized by a personal, subjective approach to the arts. Thus, expressions of intense emotions are often evoked through this style of art. In the following articles, “Beethoven’s Instrumental Music”, written by the music critic and composer, E.T.A.
Love and sex was showed by telling stories using paintings and sculptures. In this period of time using art and sculptures was a dominant mode of expression. Romanticism appeared in conflict with the Enlightenment period. In the Romantic period the Romantics were conscious of their unique destiny. In fact, it was self-consciousness which appears as one of the key elements of Romanticism itself.
The more I research about the difference between Neo-Classical works and Romantic works of art, I’ve discovered that Neo-Classical and Romantic art pieces are very similar, and in a lot of cases you really have to observe and examine the painting, especially when comparing two works of art to one another. Watteau’s painting The Storm, and Delacroix’s The Sea of Galilee painting we can compare these similarities and differences. Through the development of Neoclassicism and Romanticism you can gradually see the changes. Neo-Classical seems to more of Greek and Roman style art, they adhere more to cut to the point style depiction of their art, Romantic art was more of emotion, feelings, and at one with nature. When speaking of nature Louis-Joseph Watteau and Eugene Delacroix, both have paintings that depict nature in two distinctive ways.
The 18th and 19th centuries were a time of rapid change in Europe and this was largely because of the effects of the Industrial Revolution. The main proponents of socialism were the workers and several intellectuals in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of the intellectuals from that time included the Frenchmen Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier as well as the Englishman Charles Owen. They proposed different types of socialism. Socialism impacted Western Europe as a counter to the ideology of liberalism and it continues to impact the world today as aspects of socialism are part of not just European nations, but also part of the United States.