Universal Principles of Art

76 ROMANTICISM

SPONTENAITY, FEELINGS, IMAGINATION, AND GENIUS

Romanticism was a broad intellectual and artistic movement that swept over Europe between the 1770s and the 1850s. Essentially a reaction against the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the harsh realities of the Industrial Revolution, it championed an art that was driven by the emotions and generated from the personality, feelings, and imagination of the artist. It was particularly interested in the heightened emotions to be experienced in the presence of untamed nature: fear, awe, and transcendental wonder. The great poet of the era, William Wordsworth, said that poetry should be “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Unlike the classicists, who delighted in order and ...