Arts in the Industrial Age
Chapter 6
Section 4
Romanticism
From about 1750 to 1850, a cultural movement called
romanticism emerged in Western art and literature
Remember how the Enlightenment period was about
using natural laws to understand social, political, and
economic problems?
The romantic movement was a reaction against the
rational thought of the Enlightenment period
Romanticism emphasized imagination, freedom, and
emotion – not natural laws
In contrast to Enlightenment literature, the works of
romantic writers included direct language, intense
feelings, and a love of nature
Romantic Poets
William
Wordsworth, William Blake,
and Lord Byron were among the major
figures of the romantic movement
Romantic Novelists
Romantic novelists, such as
Victor Hugo, were inspired by
history, legend, and folklore
Hugo re-created France’s past in
novels like The Three Musketeers
and The Hunchback of Notre
Dame
Romantic Composers
Romantic composers also tried to stir deep
emotions
The passionate music of Ludwig van
Beethoven combined classical forms with
a stirring range of sound
He was the first composer to take full
advantage of the broad range of
instruments in the modern orchestra
Frederic Chopin used Polish peasant
dances to convey the sorrows and joys of
people living under foreign occupation
Ludwig van
Beethoven
Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth Symphony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4IRMYuE1hI&featur
e=fvwrel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-mvutiDRvQ
Please listen to these symphonies (Fifth and Ninth)
Romanticism in Art
Painters, too, broke free from the formal styles of the
Enlightenment
They sought to capture the beauty and power of nature
with bold brush strokes and colors
J.M.W Turner often sought to capture the beatuy and
power of nature often showing tiny human figures
struggling against sea and storm
Romantic painted many subjects, from simple peasant
life to medieval knights to current events
Bright colors conveyed violent energy and emotion
Eugene Delacroix
Painted his
canvasses with
drama
Delacroix is famous
for Liberty Leading
the People as the
Goddess of Liberty
carries the
revolutionary tricolor
of the French
Revolutionaries
Realism
By the mid-1800s, another new artistic movement,
realism, took hold in the West
Realism was an artistic style that tried to
accurately represent the world – make it as reallooking as possible
Realists sought to represent the world as it was, without
romantic sentiment (no imagination, no emotion, etc.)
Realism made people aware of the grim conditions of the
Industrial Age
Many realists wanted to convey a message – to improve
the lives of those they depicted in their paintings
Realism
Realism in Literature
Charles Dickens is known
for his detailed portrayals
of slum life and colorful
characters
Some of his novels shocked
middle-class readers with
images of poverty,
mistreatment of children,
and urban crime (e.g., Oliver
Twist, A Tale of Two Cities)
French Novelists
Depicted the evils of the time period
Victor Hugo wrote realist novels including Les Miserables
which showed how hunger drove a man to crime and
how the law pursued him
Emile Zola wrote Germinal in which she exposed class
warfare in the French mining industry
Norwegian Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House which
showed a woman caught in a straitjacket of social rules
Ibsen also authored An Enemy of the People in which a
doctor discovers that the water in a local spa is
contaminated
Ibsen and Zola were two leading realists of their
time
Realism in Art
Painters
such as Gustave Courbert also
portrayed the realities of the time
Romantic painters, like Courbert, often
painted working-class men and women
Realist painters rejected the romantic
emphasis on imagination, freedom, and
emotion
They simply painted the realities of their
time
Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet
Photography
Photography emerged as new art form in 1840s
Louis Daguerre was a pioneer in the field of
photography
Some artists questioned the effectiveness of realism
when a camera could make such exact images
Impressionism
By the 1870s, a new art movement,
impressionism, took root in Paris, France.
Impressionists tried to capture the human eye’s
first perception, or impression, of a scene
Claude Monet and Edgar Degas, sought to
capture the first fleeting impression made by a
scene or object on the viewer’s eye
By concentrating on visual impressions, rather
than realism, artists created a fresh view of
familiar subjects
Post-Impressionisism
Later painters, called post-impressionists, developed a
variety of styles
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch) (post-impressionist), for
example, experimented with sharp brush lines and bold
colors
Van Gogh did a self-portrait that shows his bandaged
ear which he cut off himself in a state of depression
(eerie, huh?)
Vincent Van Gogh
Claude Monet
Powerpoint Questions (10 points)
1. Which art form sought to capture the first fleeting
impression made by a scene or object on the viewer’s
eye?
2. Who was considered a pioneer in the field of
photography?
3. Which artistic style emphasized imagination, freedom,
and emotion?
4. Which artistic form would have portrayed the harsh lives
of slum dwellers?
a. realism, b. impressionism, c. romanticism
5. Which author was known for his colorful portrayals of
slum life?
Powerpoint Questions
6. Which Dutch painter was known for his bold colors?
7. Which Romantic composer combined classical forms
with a stirring, emotional range of sound?
8. Which Romantic author wrote The Three Musketeers and
The Huntchback of Notre Dame?
9. Where did impressionism first take root?
10. Vincent Van Gogh, who cut off his ear, was an
example of which artistic movement?
THE END