Romanticism

Romanticism is a visual language of feeling, imagination and freedom that arose in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a revolt against the cold rationalism of Neoclassicism and the ordered world of the Enlightenment. Its central idea is to exalt personal experience, passion, dream and the drama of the human soul above rules and norms. Formally, Romanticism employs dynamic, often diagonal composition, energetic movement, contrasts of light and shadow, and an expressive, free brushstroke. The palette can be dramatic and saturated, able to convey a storm, a fire, moonlight or a thunderous sky. Its motifs are the majestic elements of nature, ruins, the exoticism of the East, historical catastrophes, heroic impulses and the solitary dreamer before the infinite. Technically, its artists prize emotional immediacy over academic polish. In France, Eugène Delacroix embodied passionate colour in "Liberty Leading the People", while Théodore Géricault conveyed tragedy in "The Raft of the Medusa". In Spain, Francisco Goya laid bare the dark depths of humanity. The German Caspar David Friedrich created mystical landscapes of solitude, and the Englishman J. M. W. Turner dissolved form in the element of light and air. Romanticism fed the national awakening of peoples, including the Ukrainian, inspiring an interest in folklore and history. Today the movement is valued for its emotional depth, its cult of imagination and its affirmation of the uniqueness of the human personality.