Topic/Artist Reading/Viewing
Romanticism: Self versus state Introduction to the Salon and the Royal Academy (essay from The Met)
A beginner’s guide to Romanticism
France Romanticism in France, quiz
Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, Napoleon Bonaparte Visiting the Pest House in Jaffa, 1804
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814 (and essay), quiz
Théodore Géricault
• Raft of the Medusa, 1818-19, quiz
• Portraits of the Insane, 1822
Eugène Delacroix
• Scene of the Massacre at Chios, 1824
• The Death of Sardanapalus, 1827
• Liberty Leading the People (July 28, 1830), 1830, quiz
François Rude, La Marseillaise (The Departure of the Volunteers of 1792), 1833-36
United States Thomas Cole
• The Oxbow, 1836
• The Architect’s Dream, 1840
• The Hunter’s Return, 1845
George Catlin, The White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas, 1844-45
Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851
Frederic Edwin Church, Niagara, 1857, and Heart of the Andes, 1859
Issues in Romanticism Orientalism
From William Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1802
The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to chuse incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. The language, too, of these men is adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived; and because, from their rank in society and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, being less under the influence of social vanity they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly, such a language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by Poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art, in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their own creation.
Source: University of Pennsylvania, Department of English
Assignment
Explain Romanticism by picking two works of Romantic art covered in this week’s presentation (i.e the attach power point) and the corresponding SmartHistory material.
Explore form, content, and the ideas behind them.
APA format
1 ½ page
12 point font double spacing
Please ensure the references are from the materials provided.
