Romanticism Flashcards
1
Q
Romanticism - the term
A
- romantic - like romance
— medieval literature - chivalric novels
— fantastic stories about the adventure of knights
— plots about love, revenge, suicide, betrayal, black magic, ghosts etc
— became popular again in 18th century
2
Q
Sublime - key notion of Romanticism
A
- Edmund Burke - british philosopher
— a philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful - definition - qualities that arouse feelings of awe mixed with terror - transcendence
- purpose - express and arouse the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling
- reference: michelangelo, caravaggio, rubens
3
Q
Romantic art - characteristics
A
- wide range of subjects - freedom of imagination
- creative process highlights subjective feelings, individual point of view
- aims to arouse intense emotions like terror, despair, awe
- in varied styles, but in general some of these may apply
— loose composition, infinite forms, exaggeration and distortion
— colorism - brilliant colour; vibrant, energetic brushstrokes
— background generates a mysterious or unsettling mood (tenebrous, smoky, turbulent)
4
Q
Johann Heinrich Fussil
A
- swiss painter settled in england
- a professor of the Royal Academy
- specialized in night moods of horror and dark fantasies - among the first to depict the dark terrains of human subconscious and madness
- despised the scholastic approach to art, admired the eccentric works of william blake
5
Q
Johann Heinrich Fussli - nightmare
A
- “incubus” a demon who often prey sexually on sleeping woman
- nightmare - night + mare - mythological spirit which torments and suffocates sleepers
6
Q
Johann Heinrich Fussli - Sleepwalking Lady macbeth
A
- illustration for shakespeare’s macbeth
- macbeth was too deeply concerned with her husband’s crime that she became mad
- “femme fatale” - woman who brings destruction to man
7
Q
William Blake
A
- an eccentric poet-artist, thinker, philosopher
- hostile to orthodox religions, rejected their stringent rules - they killed creative, artistic impulse
- only use watercolour - against academic tradition of using oil
8
Q
willaim blake - elohim creating adam
A
- god is rendered as a sinister, tyrannical father, and the creation is a torture, not blessing
- reinterpreted the story of genesis; Elohim - jewish name of god
9
Q
William Blake - Ancient of days
A
- God Urizen is creating the universe
- god captures the infinity of the universe with a pair of compass -> math, geometry and science
- negative act to impose rational order on chaos resulting in reduction of the infinite to finite
10
Q
Franciso de Goya y Lucientes
A
- courter painter of charles III and IV
- became deaf, created his masterpieces afterthat
- admired Diego Velasquez
- emphasized imagination, intuition and feelings
- spoke for the suffers of Napoleonic invasion (neoclassic hero in france is murderer in spain)
- spain
11
Q
Franciso de Goya - Sleep of reason produces monsters
A
- series of 80 plates, critics to contemporary spanish society
- art is the child of reason in combination with imagination
12
Q
francisco de goya - charles IV and his family
A
- modelling on Velasquez to include himself into the painting
- traditional state portrait, though without idealisation of his sitters
— some look away
13
Q
Franciso de goya - uprising of the second of may
A
- rioters were suppressed by Morish cavalry of the french troops
2.Peinisular war - fr troops entered and the king was abdicaed
14
Q
Francisco de Goya - executions of the third of may
A
- rioters arrested the previous day were executed without a fair trial
- like a martyr, has features of christ crucified: white shirt(purity), wounds on palms, hands lifted as in crucifixtion
15
Q
Francisco de Goya - Saturn devouring his sons
A
- one of 14 black paintings decorating his house of deaf
- according to legends, one of saturn son will kill and seize his power
- god in old age - mad and barbaric - devoured his offspring
- metaphor for autocractic spanish state - devouring its own citizens?
- or for catholic church - killing many people in order to keep her power?