Romanticism
M.Shafarin Ghani
Ode to Allegro
Oil On canvas
76 x 102 cm
2007
Romanticism
The Romantic Movement spread from art into literature and philosophy. It emphasized emotional, spontaneous and imaginative approaches. In the visual arts, Romanticism came to signify the departure from classical forms and an emphasis on emotional and spiritual themes. Caused by the sudden social changes that occurred during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era, Romanticism was formed as a revolt against Neoclassicism and its emphasis on order, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality. Romanticism began in Germany and England in the 1770’s, and had spread throughout Europe by the 1820’s. Not long after, its influence had spread overseas to the United States.
The movement focused on imagination, emotion, and freedom by way of subjectivity and individualism. Artists believed in spontaneity, freedom from boundaries and rules, and living a solitary life free from societal boundaries. Romantic artists believed that imagination was superior to reason and beauty. They loved and worshipped nature and were dedicated to examining human personality and moods. Romantics were inherently curious, investigating folk cultures, ethnic origins, the medieval era. They admired the genius and the hero, focusing on one’s passion and inner struggle. Romantics also were interested in anything exotic, mysterious, remote, occult, and satanic. As a movement that began as an artistic and intellectual movement that rejected the traditional values of social structure and religion, it encouraged individualism, emotions, and nature.
Artists held
personal spirit and creativity above formal training and saw the
artistic process as a transcendental journey and spiritual awakening.
Romantic techniques were developed to produce associations in the mind
of the viewer. These foundations of the Romantic Movement were
influential in the development of Symbolism and later Expressionism and
Surrealism.
"The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we
believe.In the Middle Ages when men believed in the physical existance
of hell the sight of fire must have meant something diffrent from what
it means today.Nevertheless their idea of Hell Owed alot to the sight
of fire consuming and the ashes remaining-as well as to their experince
of the pain of burns.
When in love,the sight of the beloved has a completeness which no words
and no embrace can match. "
John Berger
"Those who speak the same language are joined to each other by a multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long before any human art begins; they understand each other and have the power of continuing to make themselves understood more and more clearly; they belong together and are by nature one and an inseparable whole. ...Only when each people, left to itself, develops and forms itself in accordance with its own peculiar quality, and only when in every people each individual develops himself in accordance with that common quality, as well as in accordance with his own peculiar quality—then, and then only, does the manifestation of divinity appear in its true mirror as it ought to be."
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
" It is a sad fate for a man die too well know to everyone,
but unknow to himself "
Francis Bacon
Romanticism
