The Rise and Fall of Romanticism

Works Cited

The Rise and Fall of Romanticism

Intro

• Took place during the 18th-20th centuries.
• Return to individualism and nature.
• Rejection of industrialism and the age of enlightenment.

• Unlike classicism or the baroque, romanticism has no definable standards. Indeed rejection of rules is almost a touchstone of the romantic temperance.

• The romantic temperament responds to emotion rather than reason, is excited by mystery rather than persuaded by clarity, listens more intently to the individual conscience than to the demands of society, and prefers rebellion to acceptance.

• Changes in society, beginning in the 18th century and continuing into our own time, underlie the romantic movement.

Summary of Romanticism

Major Contributions of Romanticism to Society

The Last "true" Romantic Artists

Romanticism in its prime

• The ultimate personification of these Late-Romantic trends is surely Richard Wagner, whose operas and "Music Dramas" are largely defined by intense emotional expression, elaborate structural unity, and vast artistic scope - embodied in his term, Gesamskunstwerk (total or integrated artwork)
• .Even composers who embraced differing conceptions of musical form and substance, most notably Johannes Brahms, were impelled by the same basic forces, and sought ever-tighter means to create structural cohesion in their music.
• The Romantic movement lasted longest with composers because they took the passion of Romantic art and brought order to it.

Origins of Romanticism

• Romantic ideals greatly influenced the revolutions taking place in is time, such as the French Revolution.
• Many authors of the Romantic period, such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey, sympathized with the French Revolution. After the Storming of the Bastille and the Reign of Terror, however, these authors, Wordsworth most emblematically, used their poetry as a means of dealing with the trauma of the Revolution’s bloody transformation and the disappointment of democratic hopes.

Key Artists

Modern Romanticism

• Theodore Garicault: His masterpiece, The Raft of the Medusa was iconic in the era in which he lived, forging a new emphasis on raw emotion and sharply veering away from the refined compositional studies of Neoclassicism. This piece was one of the first
• Jacques Louis David: Early Romanticism was shaped largely by artists trained in Jacques Louis David’s studio, including Baron Antoine Jean Gros, Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.
• J.M.W. Turner: Though profoundly influenced by landscapists and history painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Turner was an innovator who has been hailed as a forerunner of modernist abstraction.

Key Writers

• William Wordsworth is known as one of the most prolific writers of the Romantic era. He drew much inspiration from the solitude he experienced in nature. It is prevalent in the tone he uses in Tintern Abbey that though he had connections to the social world, he found solace and meaning in nature. This lifestyle was prevalent among the pioneers of Romanticism.

• Edgar Allan Poe's tales of mystery and horror gave birth to the modern detective story and many of his works, including “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” became literary classics. His dark and alluring works helped define Gothic literature.

• Some of the first works considered to be Romantic were created by the Grimm brothers when they collected folklore and treated it as high class works.
• The idea that old folk tales should be treated equally was one of the first tenants of Romanticism.

• Changed the artistic narrative of the western world. Romanticism, not Intellectualism was the predominant factor in The western world.
• All forms of art enjoyed widespread innovation and new found passion.
• Nature and metaphysical inquiry became popularized.

• Romanticism lives on in classical composers who take the old ideas of musical composition but leave very little order and create abstract masterpieces.
• Romantic philosophy has not necessarily been revitalized, but the major tenants such as, a return to nature, the individualism of man, and rejection of industrialism have still been a major part of society.

Decline of Romanticism

Beginning of Romanticism

• By about the middle of the 19th century, romanticism began to give way to new literary movements: the Parnassians and the symbolist movement in poetry, and realism and naturalism.
• Art started to move away from expressionism, and towards impressionism.

• Art: Became more emotive, a rejection of restrained expression, and a return to nature.
• Music: Artists were allowed to break previous boundaries.
• Literature: Boasted more expression; Gothic thrillers contained dark and mystical elements. Literature became more individualized and a focus on the author's emotions.

Factors Contributing to the Decline of Romanticism

• Political upheaval and the rise of socialism.
• The emotional, pathetic, and heroic tones of Romanticism began to divide European art.
• A new focus on nationalism and abstract thinking rendered Romanticism as obsolete in this new world.