Romanticism and Realism

Meaghan Edgerly -outline

Romanticism (1750-1850)

Flourished 1800-1840

A big contrast to Neoclassicism:

·       Art based on reason. People wanted to find the truth.

·       And reason was the way to find truth.

·       And then it changed….

·       It was a challenge to the Enlightenment's notion of rationality.

·       Philosophical movement at that time. They were the rationalists.

Romanticism:

The foundation for art, music, and literature was now emotion, drama, imagination, adventure.

•       Imagination is crucial.

•       Focuses on erotic pleasures.

•       High Drama

•       Movement

•       Bringing dreams and nightmares to the surface.

•       Idea that science was cold and alienated people

•       Poetry was the valued literature.

Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare

Express erotic fantasies through vivid imagination. The Incubus, preying on sleeping women. Human sub-consciousness. Nightmare. “mare” “Mara” spirit in North European mythology known to torment and suffocate people in their sleep.

William Blake, Ancient of Days : Michelangeloesque painting. Classical anatomy merges with inner dark dreams. “When he set a compass upon the face of the deep” Proverbs 8:27. Blake used this painting in his book, Europe: A Prophesy. Wisdom---TRUTH.

Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

Goya depicted asleep with threatening creatures. Unleashing of imagination, emotion, and nightmares.

Goya, Third of May, 1814

Lots of emotion and expression. French invasion. Anonymous murderous French soldiers executing unarmed Spanish peasants. Horrified expressions. Has a cruciform gestures- symbol of Christ here.

Lots of darks and lights. Men about to be executed. Bloody Bodies and dead people. Resistance and patriotism.

Goya, Saturn Devouring One of His Children

Saturn is associated with time. Maybe Goya is upset over the passage of time. Saturn in Greek is Kronos, which is similar to the word for time.

Theodorre Gericault, Raft of the Medusa, 1818-1819

Heroic and epic like Neoclassicism, yet dramatic, complex, and emotional like Romanticism.

Music at the time expressed abstract ideas even better than art. Compare a piece of “classical” Bach music to a “romantic” by the French Composer, Saint Saen’s The Swan  

We can see a lot more expression. The endless pursuit of the unattainable.

There is freedom and passion felt in this music.

Wagner was a German composer and in his opera Die Walküre there is high drama and intesity. Compare that intensity to the art by Gericault and Delacroix. It is very similar.

Literature: The best literature during the romanticism was poetry because it was more expressive. Other books, such as Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly, came out.

Literature changed when the Romanticism shifted toward Realism. Books by Charles Dickens became very popular because they focused on realistic people and realistic  situations.

Realism started to take place as reaction  to Romanticism.

Due to scientific evolution and the studies of Charles Darwin.

•       Looking at everyday people doing everyday, ordinary things.

•       Conveying the dismal life.

•       No need for romantic heroes or dramatic scenes.

Lesson Outline

First: Romanticism and Realism
Next: Attention activity
        -camera obscura room (turn the entire room into a camera obscura by covering all windows with black and turning out lights.  Poke small hole in window covering and the outside will be projected into the room.

Finally:Early Photography 

What is a camera obscura?

What did Louis Daguerre invent?

Who was the famous Photographer who documented the civil war?

Who is Eadweard Muybridge?

How did painters use the invention of photography?

ART PROMPT: Pick a photograph and create an art piece in the style of Romanticism.  Using the elements of design from the photograph selected, create a new image that conveys a powerful emotion.

Romanticiism Power Point:
http://www.slideshare.net/jericajw/romanticism-18488142

Early Photography:
http://www.slideshare.net/jericajw/early-photography-18488251