Romantic Artists

Romantic Artists 1

Romantic Artists

AIU

Romantic Artists 2

Romantic Artists

The Romantic Era of art has little or nothing to do with romantic thoughts. Rather it is stated as “An international and philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and about their world.”(http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu). The romantic movement was strongly attached to England and Germany; oddly enough this is not where you typically think of as “Romantic” cultures. The era of the Romantics is loosely said to be from 1798 to 1832. The age of Romanticism was considered to be the “Age of Revolutions”; this was due in large part of the timing of the American and French revolutions during this time. It was a time of change; there were many upheavals especially in the political, economic and social circles all across Europe. As stated in (http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu) “A revolutionary energy was also at the core of Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform not only the theory and practice of poetry (and all art), but the very way we perceive the world. Some of its major precepts have survived into the twentieth century and still affect our contemporary period”.

This being said I have looked at this era with excitement and decided to showcase three artists that showed the true feelings of this time in history. The first artist is William Blake. He was a British artist that lived from 1757 вЂ" 1827. The painting that I will look at is called “Catherine Blake”. This is a painting of his wife while she was working some say on some of his work. William met Catherine in 1781 and married a year later, they stayed together for nearly forty-five years without more than a day apart in that time.

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William taught Catherine how to do several things such as: read, how to use a printing press and how to color the pages of his illustrated books. This sketch was on a loose piece of paper while William watched his wife work. This sketch was done on paper with graphite in the year 1805. The sketch was not overly a finished piece but the beauty of this is the simplicity, the husband looking and drawing the beauty that is his wife. During a period of time called the Romantic the artist took it to heart even though the bulk of the art that was produced during this time does not reflect the same feeling.

The second artist that was chosen was Thomas Doughty. He was a founding member of the Hudson River School, which was a collection of painters that were inspired by the beauty of the American wilderness. Thomas was an American who lived from 1793-1856. The piece that I wanted to discuss was “The Lake of the Mountains”. The painting was first sketched and then painted in 1829. Thomas was famous for sketching and painting the landscape while he was on the site of his inspiration (http://thinker.org). The painting is made with oil on canvas. The scene is of a beautiful lake in the mountains completely surrounded by dense woods. There are two people and a dog that are down by the lake, I can not tell if they are hunters or just explorers. The painting is of a sky that is heavy with purple clouds that looks as if they are clearing to show a bright sun. The colors that are used to paint are dark and subtle as to showcase the layered effect of the vegetation and woods.

The third artist that was chosen is Frederic Edwin Church. He was an American who was also very instrumental in the Hudson River School. Frederic was a son of a very rich man which led to his ability to travel and sketch. “From the spring to autumn of

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each year Church would travel, often by foot, sketching. He would return each winter to paint and sell his work” (http://wikipedia.org). This was different from the other two artists that I have looked at, both of those artists sketched and or painted on site. The painting that we will look at is “Heart of the Andes”; this was an oil on canvas which was done in 1859. This was the first painting in American history to sell for $10,000 (http://wikipedia.org). The Heart of the Andes is one of the most celebrated landscape paintings of all time; it is a colossal work that measures five feet high by ten feet in length (http://wikipedia.org). The painting itself is a true masterpiece. There is a great distinction between the snowcapped mountains in the background and the lush jungle in the foreground. The depth that is shown in this painting is amazing. There are very distinct items that are incorporated in this work such as the brilliant blue flowers that are in the front lower right corner and the smaller white cross with someone kneeling and praying. Again this would stand as one of the greatest landscape paintings of all time due to its clarity and attention to detail.

Romanticism might best be described as anti-classicism. A reaction against neo-classicism, it is a deeply felt style which is individualistic, exotic, beautiful and emotionally wrought (http://artcyclopedia.com). This being said you can see why this time period was so important