Unit 5: Romanticism

Romanticism is an artistic movement that sought to oppose the views and beliefs of neoclassicism. The introduction of romanticism actually was the reason neoclassicism was no longer praised. Romanticism is not about love. Romanticism actually emphasizes imagination and emotions. I love romanticism because I believe that emotion and a sense of imagination is what art should be about. Art, to me, should be expressive and vivid. Art should express the feelings of the artist. Art should be a tad bit peculiar to keep your attention and keep you entertained. That is what romanticism is all about. It’s about capturing and retaining the viewer’s eye. It’s about creating a sense of sentience within the viewer. It’s about going beyond the boundaries of reality and emphasizing surrealism. A painting that we viewed in class was Theodore Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa. This painting actually depicted the real life event of when a group of Algerian immigrants were set adrift after a shipwreck off of the coast of Africa. This image emphasizes the pain and struggle that the men faced while on the raft. There were a plethora of corpses on and hanging off of the raft, emphasizing how gruesome and deadly this event was. The painting was not created to display the event. Instead, it was created to show the emotional toll and deprivation that the immigrants experienced during this event.