The Romantic Age

1. The Romantic Age

2. The Romantic Hero • People who embodied Romantic qualities: • Free-spirited • Unconventional behavior • Original • Napoleon, Beethoven, Chopin, Keats, Lord Byron, Frederick Douglass, etc.

3. Values of Romanticism • Belief in the natural goodness of man (Rousseau) • Glorification of the self • Love of nature, the exotic, history in a nostalgic way • Originality • Rejection of Enlightenment ideals • Interest in folk tradition, nationalism

4. The Napoleonic Era • 1799 – disillusioned citizens • New hero: Napoleon Bonaparte • Dreams of imperial glory • Crowned himself emperor in 1804 • Campaign to conquer Europe • Defeated in 1814 at Waterloo • Imprisoned for the rest of his life at St. Helena

5. Napoleon and the Arts • Imitated Roman emperors – made Paris imperial capital like Rome • Power advertised by arts and buildings • Louvre – a museum for pieces stolen from conquered countries • Triumphal arches and columns • La Madeleine – made in the style of a Greek temple • Jacques-Louis David was “Painter to the Empire” • Coronation scene and equestrian painting

6. Beethoven • Suffering romantic genius • Deafness at 25 • Pianist in Vienna, able to sell his compositions • Added piccolo and trombone to the symphonic orchestra • Symphony Number 5 in C Minor • Confrontation with fate: “fate knocking at the door” • Motif – a term for short musical idea • Symphony No. 3, Eroica, was the bridge between Classical style and Romantic style

7. Musical Virtuosos • Paganini – the violin • Chopin – the piano • Schumann -- songs and symphonies • Clara Schumann – lieder (songs) • Brahms – symphonies

8. Goethe and Faust • Faust – a romantic masterpiece drama in two parts • Delacroix illustrated a French translation • Schubert composed songs • Gounod – the opera Faust – the ambition to burst all human constraint and indulge unquenched desire for experience

9. Delacroix and the Byronic Hero • French more attracted to sensuality of Lord Byron – Don Juan, life of sexual freedom, political idealism and exotic travel. • Intellectual and moral freedom • Eugène Delacroix rebelled against the academy • Color, drama, and exotic themes

10. Liberty Leading the People • Fig. 17.5 • Revolution of 1830 overthrew the Bourbon king • Unity of the classes • “Liberty” is idealized

11. Romantic Social Protest: William Blake • Sympathetic observer of those enslaved by the industrial city • Condemned the ills of urban existence

12. Romantic Feminism • Mary Wollstonecraft – A Vindication of the Rights of Women, compared women to soldiers • Revolutions did not liberate women • Napoleon’s legal code denied women the right to hold property • Western nations did not allow women to vote

13. Goya and Spain • Goya’s paintings depicted the senseless brutality of war: Great Courage! Against Corpses! (fig. 17.3) • Executions of the Third of May, 1808 (fig. 17.2) • Christ-like martyr in white • Lamp = enlightenment (irony)

14. The Romantics and Nature • Romantic landscapes • Constable: The Haywain (fig. 17.8),rustic landscapes • Turner: The Slave Ship (fig. 17.9), colors of sea and sky • Thomas Moran: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (fig. 17.11), the drama of nature

15. Romantic Exoticism • Middle classes become strong • Drawn to exotic and grotesque • Colonies overseas in Africa and Asia • Fascination with Arabic customs and dress • Ingres – a disciple of David: La Grande Odalisque (fig. 17.6), classical figures

16. Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique • Innovated with program music (composition that tells a story or describes a place) • Story of Irish actress who rejected him • By the fifth movement, the musician is dead and his beloved joins the celebration in a witches’ dance • The macabre

17. The Romantic Novel • Fascination with evil and the demonic – the “Gothic” novel • Edgar Allan Poe • Charlotte and Emily Brontë • Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein • Hero who suffers a conflict between his God-like ambitions and moral blindness