Romanticism facts for kids

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, 38.58 × 29.13 inches, 1818, Oil on canvas, Kunsthalle Hamburg

Romanticism (the Romantic era or Romantic period) is a movement, or style of art, literature and music in the late 18th and early 19th century in Europe.

The movement said that feelings, imagination, nature, human life, freedom of expression, individualism and old folk traditions, such as legends and fairy tales, were important. It was a reaction to the aristocratic social and political ideas of the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

It was also a reaction against turning nature into a mere science.

The movement showed most strongly in arts like music, and literature. However, it also had an important influence on historiography, education, and natural history.

Examples

United Kingdom

Romanticism in Britain was notable as the country was an early adopter of industrialization and science, and included such figures as:

Germany

During the same period as Britain, there was a notable romantistic movement in Germany. Important motifs in German Romanticism are traveling, nature, and Germanic myths. Involved were such figures as:

Goethe as a younger man.
Hegel
Schiller
Beethoven
The Brothers Grimm

Related pages

Images for kids

Philipp Otto Runge, The Morning, 1808
William Blake, The Little Girl Found, from Songs of Innocence and Experience, 1794
John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott, 1888, after a poem by Tennyson; like many Victorian paintings, romantic but not Romantic.
Title page of Volume III of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, 1808
William Wordsworth (pictured) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature in 1798 with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads
Robert Burns in Alexander Nasmyth's portrait of 1787
The "battle of Hernani" was fought nightly at the theatre in 1830
Adam Mickiewicz on the Ayu-Dag, by Walenty Wańkowicz, 1828
Juliusz Słowacki, a Polish poet considered one of the "Three National Bards" of Polish literature—a major figure in the Polish Romantic period, and the father of modern Polish drama.
Portuguese poet, novelist, politician and playwright Almeida Garrett (1799–1854)
Italian poet Isabella di Morra, sometimes cited as a precursor of Romantic poets
A print exemplifying the contrast between neoclassical vs. romantic styles of landscape and architecture (or the "Grecian" and the "Gothic" as they are termed here), 1816
Dennis Malone Carter, Decatur Boarding the Tripolitan Gunboat, 1878. Romanticist vision of the Battle of Tripoli, during the First Barbary War. It represents the moment when the American war hero Stephen Decatur was fighting hand-to-hand against the Muslim pirate captain.
Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire: The Savage State (1 of 5), 1836
Thomas Jones, The Bard, 1774, a prophetic combination of Romanticism and nationalism by the Welsh artist
Cavalier gaulois by Antoine-Augustin Préault, Pont d'Iéna, Paris
Ludwig van Beethoven, painted by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Portrait of Niccolò Paganini, 1819
Akseli Gallen-Kallela, The Forging of the Sampo, 1893. An artist from Finland deriving inspiration from the Finnish "national epic", the Kalevala
Egide Charles Gustave Wappers, Episode of the Belgian Revolution of 1830, 1834, Musée d'Art Ancien, Brussels. A romantic vision by a Belgian painter.
The November Uprising (1830–31), in the Kingdom of Poland, against the Russian Empire
Hameau de la Reine, Palace of Versailles (1783–1785)
Royal Pavilion in Brighton by John Nash (1815–1823)
Cologne Cathedral (1840–80)
Grand Staircase of the Paris Opera by Charles Garnier (1861–75)
Basilica of Sacré-Cœur by Paul Abadie (1875–1914)
Francisco Goya, The Third of May 1808, 1814
Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1819
Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People 1830
J. M. W. Turner, The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, 1839
Felix Mendelssohn, 1839
Robert Schumann, 1839
Franz Liszt, 1847
Daniel Auber, c. 1868
Hector Berlioz by Gustave Courbet, 1850
Giovanni Boldini, Portrait of Giuseppe Verdi, 1886
Richard Wagner, c. 1870s
Giacomo Meyerbeer, 1847
Joseph Vernet, 1759, Shipwreck; the 18th-century "sublime"
Joseph Wright, 1774, Cave at evening, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts
Henry Fuseli, 1781, The Nightmare, a classical artist whose themes often anticipate the Romantic
Philip James de Loutherbourg, Coalbrookdale by Night, 1801, a key location of the English Industrial Revolution
Théodore Géricault, The Charging Chasseur, c. 1812
Eugène Delacroix, Collision of Moorish Horsemen, 1843–44
Eugène Delacroix, The Bride of Abydos, 1857, after the poem by Byron
Joseph Anton Koch, Waterfalls at Subiaco 1812–1813, a "classical" landscape to art historians
James Ward, 1814–1815, Gordale Scar
John Constable, 1821, The Hay Wain, one of Constable's large "six footers"
J. C. Dahl, 1826, Eruption of Vesuvius, by Friedrich's closest follower
Karl Bryullov, The Last Day of Pompeii, 1833, The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
Isaac Levitan, Pacific, 1898, State Russian Museum, St.Petersburg
J. M. W. Turner, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1835), Philadelphia Museum of Art
Hans Gude, Winter Afternoon, 1847, National Gallery of Norway, Oslo
Ivan Aivazovsky, 1850, The Ninth Wave, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
John Martin, 1852, The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Laing Art Gallery
Frederic Edwin Church, 1860, Twilight in the Wilderness, Cleveland Museum of Art
Albert Bierstadt, 1863, The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak