Neoclassicism prized reason, order and Roman virtue. Around 1800 many artists, poets and composers turned the other way. Romanticism (about 1790 to 1850) valued feeling over reason, the individual over the rules, imagination over imitation, and above all the power of nature.
A key idea was the sublime. In 1757 the writer Edmund Burke separated the beautiful (small, smooth, pleasing) from the sublime: things so vast or powerful that they fill us with awe, even a thrill of fear, such as mountains, storms, the open sea and the night sky. Romantic painters set out to make viewers feel the sublime.
Key idea
Looking closely: Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
Describe. A man in a dark green coat, cane in hand, stands on a rocky summit with his back to us, looking out over a sea of fog from which rocky peaks rise. Analyze. The figure is placed right in the center, dark against the pale mist, and the lines of the slopes lead to him. Because we see him from behind (a Rückenfigur, German for "back figure," Friedrich's favorite device), we look with him rather than at him. The far distance dissolves into soft blue-gray haze. Interpret. It is a picture of one person facing the immensity of nature, and of the inner life of the person looking. What he feels, awe, loneliness or mastery, is left to us.
Why it works
Turner
J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851) painted light and weather themselves. In The Fighting Temeraire, a pale, ghostly old warship that fought at Trafalgar in 1805 is towed up the Thames by a small, dark steam tug to be broken up, in 1838. Behind them the sun sets in a blaze of orange and gold. The old sailing age gives way to the age of steam, and Turner lets color carry the feeling.
Common mistake
Worked example: Romantic or Neoclassical?
- The subject is nature's overwhelming power: the sublime.
- Loose, expressive color carries feeling, not crisp outline.
- The tiny human element against nature's scale is typical of Romanticism.
Answer: Romanticism.