Romanticism
what is Romanticism?
where did it spread?
what did it refuse of the “modern world”?
why is Rousseau an innovative author?
central moments in the history of Romanticism
Romanticism is a historical movement that refers to the birth of a new set of ideas and still highly colours how we tend to feel and look at the world. In fact, it’s responsible for the way we approach love, nature, business and children.
It spread all over the world, changing how millions of people look at nature, children, love, sex, money and work.
Romanticism is best understood as a reaction to the birth of the modern world and some of its key features: industrialization, urbanization, secularization and consumerism.
2 Brook Street, London, August 1770. A 17 years old poet called Thomas Chatterton kills himself because no one wants to publish his poetry which is concerned with beauty and wisdom and because his family presses him to become a lawyer. He becomes an emblem of the idea of the sensitive and doomed artist rejected by a cruel world.
when did it begin?
Romanticism began in Western Europe in the mid-18 century, in the work of artists, poets and philosophers.
The Marais, Paris, May 1762. The Swiss philosopher Rousseau publishes a book about the raising of children: “Emile” or “On Education”. It contains diatribes against the oppressive world of adults and praises the natural goodness, spontaneity and wisdom of little children.
The world around Rousseau is growing ever more rational, scientific and technologically based. It is increasingly sensible, planned, sterile and bureaucratic. Against all of these, Rousseau emphasizes the child, the original rebel, the representative of everything that is pure, unschooled and outside of adult discipline.
For the first time in Western history, glamour is directed not at the attainment of reason and adult self-control but at the freedom from tradition and the natural innocence and the sweetness of the child.
4 Madrid, Spain, 1798. The artist Francisco Goya produces one of his most iconic images titled “The Sleep of Reason Brings out Monsters”. It captures a quintessential romantic interest in the limits of reason and the power of the irrational over humans fragile minds.
3 Leipzig, Germany, 1774. The german author Goethe publishes the quintessential romantic love story: The Sorrows of Young Werther. It tells the story of a passionate doomed love affair between a young poet called Werther and a beautiful clever young woman called Charlotte. Like Chatterton, Werther is under pressure to have a sensible career and to join bourgeois life. However, he can only think about the impulses of his heart and so he kills himself.
The book becomes the most popular novel of a generation and dramatically changes how people think of love, privileging dramatic outpouring of feelings over more traditional and rational concerns for class, lineage and money.
5 The Lake District, England, December 1799. A young English poet called William Wordsworth, with his poetry, celebrates the natural world and despises everything mechanical and industrial.
To be romantic is to have sympathy for madness and to hold almost vengeful attitude towards bombastic claims as to the triumph of rationality, science and logic.
To be a romantic is to take the side of nature against industry.
6 Niagara, United States, September 1829. The american painter Thomas Cole paints one of his most characteristic images of the mighty Niagara Falls with a couple of Native Americans in the foreground. Cole makes his name as a painter of sublime scenes, vast landscapes of the American interior showing nature and its most impressive and wide-open spaces.
7 Westminster, London, April 1847. The architect Augustus Pugin rebuild the parliament which was made to look like a medieval building. With Pugin begins the cult of the Middle Ages, a theme which identifies in the world of knights and castles, a nobility that is thought missing in the modern world.
8 Saint-Germain, Paris, May 1863. The french poet Baudelaire writes a prose poem, celebrating an unusual character. His character is a casual wanderer who has no particular job to go to and just spend his time observing busy street life of a modern city, threading his way through the crowds, strolling instead of rushing and sampling people’s conversations.
9 Le Havre, April 1891. The french painter Paul Gauguin set sail for Tahiti, hoping to escape everything that is artificial and conventional. He draws young Native women looking relaxed and natural. They are in his eyes the evidence that civilization is what has made us sick.