HISTORICAL Context of Romanticism

The romanticism It is an artistic, literary and cultural movement that was born at the end of the 18th century and lasted until the beginning of the 19th century. It was originated between England and Germany, but in a short time it spread to Europe and even America.

This movement is based on the author's freedom of breaking the strict rules that had existed until now and being able to see the world from a subjective point of view. In this lesson from a TEACHER we want to show you the historical context of Romanticism so that you can understand why this movement arose that changed art completely.

The years in which Romanticism was at its climax were between the 1820 and 1850, although it began several years before in Germany with the literary trend of Sturm and Drangand the philosophical school of Jena. The thought of Romanticism arose in as opposed to the ancient Modern Age who sought order and rigor in all things. Romanticism, on the other hand, teaches that the artist can construct his art based on the subjectivity of your emotions.

Society in the nineteenth century was constantly changing and that is what gave romanticism the necessary strength to become one of the most important movements that we know until today. This was the historic context where romanticism was born:

• French Revolution: Europe was in crisis with respect to the previous regime due to the revolution that had occurred in France. In addition, Napoleon had failed in his projects and the people were constantly changing monarchs that gave them a very worrying social stability.
• Restoration: The exile of Santa Elena, made Louis XVIII ascend to the throne, who from the beginning tried to erase all the ideas that the French Revolution had sown.
• Workers' demonstrations: At this time the first worker demonstrations were produced by the employees to fight for their working conditions.
• Industrialization: The first industries began and with this, the entire society that lived outside the cities began to mobilize to find their place in the big cities.
• Bourgeoisie: As cities grew so much due to industrialization, the difference became more apparent between the rich and the poor, therefore the first bourgeois classes were created as a social class in ascent.
• Independence: There began to have independence struggles in certain territories that were governed by foreign powers such as the Spanish-American countries, Italy and Greece.

Romanticism therefore encountered a time of constant change in which society began to change its mentality and rethink how they had lived until then

Romanticism comes at a time when the history was changing completely. There was nothing stable and all the bases on which they had lived up to that moment were mutating.

In this environment they collided three main ideas:

• The first was ideology absolutist that was destined for social failure, but resisted disappearing,
• The second the Illustration who supported his ideas in the French Revolution
• And finally the Romanticism that was against the previous two.

It is common to speak of Romanticism only in its artistic aspect, but we cannot forget that this current that had so much weight was the consequence of a unstructured and lost society I was looking for answers and new ways of living.

At that time the subjectivity dominated the environmentWhat had been until now was no longer so, even in things as obvious as the borders of countries. There was some restructuring of the territories of the European countries that led to the society to individualism, to think about themselves and their territory. Within this individualism a paradoxically opposite idea arises: the idea of spirit of the people.

This idea of ​​the union of the people arises from two main causes: the first is the struggle of the workers for better conditions and the second is the fight against bourgeoisie that had settled in the cities; we have mentioned how both arose previously. Therefore, society was at a time of union and fight against the common enemy, but always without losing the individualism that we have mentioned before.

Furthermore, as all the hitherto existing bases were being removed, the members of the society stopped acting as puppets and began to stop to think what they believed in and what they wanted. They even began to consider their feelings as the engine of their lives. That's where the most tragic side of romanticism comes from.

They stopped thinking of death as a purely Christian fact and began to put it feelings and emotions to all the things that happened to them during life. This was born there subjectivism so characteristic of romanticism in which they allowed themselves to disagree with each other without there being an absolute truth. Death thus becomes the worst tragedy of the life.

Romanticism was a general change of society and it can be seen very clearly in certain artistic disciplines who took this movement as their way of making art. We can find romantic art in painting, literature, sculpture, architecture, music, etc.

Now that you know the historical and social context of how Romanticism arose, we want to explain the main features of this great movement, where you will see all the changes that were happening in society in a much more practical way.

These are the characteristics of Romanticism most outstanding:

• Imagination: They came from a context in which they could only create tangible artistic concepts. That is, if we talk about painting, it was only allowed to paint portraits, fruit sketches or biblical stories. When artists understand that they can use your imagination It is when works as emotional as that of The walker on the sea of ​​fog.
• Individualism: The individual is recognized as an "I" and has a unique and individual identity that differs in many ways from the other individuals with whom he relates. Praise is made of the characteristics of each person and personal satisfaction is sought. We can see it very clearly in the music, since it was the beginning of improvisation. Whereas before the whole group had to play a harmonica piece, now the musicians begin to stand out individually above the orchestra.
• Break the rules: The last artistic trend had been neoclassicism that stood out for having very rigid rules when executing art. Romanticism instead puts the art at the service of the artist and it allows all the previously stipulated rules to be broken.
• Visions: Artists begin to experiment with figures and sensations abstract that they have perceived in dreams or imaginations and begin to give it relevance as real beings.
• Incomprehension: Artists who were considered geniuses always had a very tormented life and were based on the concept that, because of their genius, no one understood them. They lived in a constant state of inner gloom. Goya he was an artist who lived halfway between neoclassicism and romanticism and his works show this transition very well over the years. In addition, he is the quintessential artist who represented this current in its darkest times. A good example of a misunderstood and tormented artist is his work The dream of the reason produces monsters.
• Subjectivity: The neoclassical had taught them to follow completely objective structures. They knew perfectly what beauty was, what happiness was, what love was, etc. The artists of romanticism begin to experiment with these sensations and they don't take anything for granted from what was previously learned. Try to express your feelings about your art and to see the great deeds of humanity from another point of view.
• The beauty: Beauty in neoclassical art had perfectly established canons and was based on exact measurements and concrete forms. In romanticism the beauty proposal is something totally different. For them, beauty was something that surpassed them by its absolute greatness. This absolute greatness was not only due to pleasure, but also to the fear of not being able to correspond correctly.
• Nationalist sentiment: In a time of constant change it was necessary for the individual to be able to know what his origin was, where his roots were, and from there this nationalist feeling arose. Then the regional art, a type of art that was not shared between nations, but sought its own characteristics to begin creating an artistic culture for each region. A clear example of this feeling is the work of Freedom guiding the people by Eugene Delacroix.
• Nature: Previously, landscape paintings were made capturing what the author saw on the canvas. With romanticism the authors begin to conceive of nature as a means to express their emotions. Thus, landscapes are not real places, but imaginary parallels of how the author felt inside. Landscapes were preferred then mysterious, dark and wild.
• Back to top: Romantic artists feel that with industrialization man has completely separated himself from his natural origin and that he has lost this earth connection. They then make references to the past times that were better.

The romantic literature, therefore, it harbors all these characteristics in its works written in the time of the romanticism. A time of social change where artists allowed themselves to write, guided by their imagination, scenes that did not exist and express your feelings with each of his words on the paper.

This is the historical and social context of romanticism and its main characteristics. If you are interested in continuing to learn about this topic or others like it, we recommend that you take a look at the section on the history of literature.