Romantic View of Humankind

Neo-classical writers and artists often dealt with aristocrats or a fairly cultivated middle-class. They had no interest in the poor or downtrodden. Romantic poets all began their careers with strong democratic ideas. Wordworth and Coleridge, for example, thrilled to the aims of the French Revolution--although they later changed minds. As a young man, Coleridge planned to come to the United States to found a utopian community. Lord Byron supported the underground movement in Italy for Italian independence and died off the coast of Greece supporting the Greek cause for independence.
	Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)
	The Massacre at Chios 1824
	Like Lord Byron, the young Delacroix espoused the cause of the Greeks under Turkish oppression. This painting illustrates the Turks' repression of an uprising on the island of Chios in 1822. Delacroix's motives are not solely political however; he was attracted throughout his career to exotic subject matter.
Wordsworth wrote poems about leechgathers, the mentally retarded, and poor old men and women--subjects Neoclassical writers had no sympathy for. See Wordsworth's Goody Blake and Harry Gill. Visual artists as well introduced new subjects--peasants, rustic figures, the lowly poor.
	Jean François Millet (1814-1875)
	The Gleaners 1857
	Here Millet depicts the lowest of the low--the female peasants who take the leavings of the field after it has been harvested. He rarely glamorizes the poor, showing them in rough homespun and wooden clogs, bent and tired from their labors. Faces usually aren't individualized; these are the anonymous poor. His works were hated by the academic establishment in France: "This is the painting of democrats, of those who don't change their linen....this art disgusts."

Below are three additional works by Millet, entitled (left to right): Peasant Girls with Brushwood, c. 1852; Woman with a Rake, 1856-57; Peasant Spreading Manure, 1854-55

The neoclassical period is sometimes called the "age of reason"; the romantic peroiod could be called the age of feeling. Instead of the stern oath-swearers of David's The Oath of the Horatii or his stoic Socrates, men and women in romantic paintings often exhibit extreme states of emotion. We have already seen Friedrich's lone yearning figures. Artists culled literature for moving situations to paint.
	James Barry (1741-1806)
	King Lear Weeping over the Dead Body of Cordelia 1786-88
	Neoclassical writers sometimes attempted to rewrite Shakespeare's plays, primarily because they didn't follow the classical unities of place, time, and action. But Shakespeare was very popular with Romantic writers and artists who saw Shakespeare's plays as embodying "Imagination" (as opposed to neoclassical reason or wit). With the exception of the face of Lear (which owes to the sublime view of God in Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling), the style of this painting, however, is closer to neoclassicism. (Note that figures are parallel to the picture plane, sculpturesque, and tightly painted.)
	Anne-Louis Girodet (1767-1824)
	The Entombment of Atala 1808
	Girodet, a pupil of David's, also paints in a neoclassical style but his subjects are often romantic. This, his most popular painting, is based on the French writer Chateaubriand's intensely romantic novel about the "New World." Unlike Socrates' stoic and rational suicide, Atala's self-inflicted death is sentimental; although she was in love with the noble American Indian (at her feet), she had promised her Mother to remain a virgin and suicide was her solution.
Romantic painters like Girodet were attracted to non-European subject matter because it seemed exotic. Girodet painted Africans as well as Native Americans. The French painter Delacroix also painted North African subjects as well as middle-Eastern scenes.
	Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)
	Women of Algiers in their Apartment 1834
	When Delacroix toured North Africa he made a secret visit to a harem. Here he depicts odalisques, the exotic name for women in an oda (or harem). The sensuality and rich colors are typical of romantic paintings.
Romantics were interested in extreme irrational states. For example, Lord Byron's Prisoner of Chillon tells of the madness of the prisoner, who suffered solitary confinement. Romantic artists seem to emphasize that human reason is tenuous and attempt to convey insanity and subconscious feelings.
	Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)
	Medea 1838
	Although Delacroix usually borrowed narratives from romantic writers, here he uses classical mythology. Medea is about to kill her two children as a way of punishing her unfaithful husband Jason.
	Théodore Géricault (1791-1824)
	The Madwoman c. 1822
	Géricault made a series of portraits depicting residents of a mental institution. It might help to recall that an "entertainment" in 18th century England (the age of Reason) was visiting the "crazies" at Bedham (Bethlehem Hospital). In contrast, Géricault sees individualtiy and essential humanity in the faces of the mentally ill.
	Henry Fuseli (1741-1825)
	The Nightmare c. 1781
	This strange painting literalizes the idea of a night "mare" and depicts an incubus on the woman's abdomen--a demon from folk tales believed to have intercourse with sleeping women. Although some critics called Fuseli "mad" and "Painter to the Devil," his works were popular with the general public. Freud later displayed a print of this work in his office since it seemed to illustrate the great psychologist's idea that dreams welled up from the dreamer's subconscious.
Finally, Romantic writers and poets had an intense interest in witches. In one of Coleridge's poems, Christabel, a woman is bewitched by a serpent-like hissing witch; and the lead character in Keats' Lamia is a snake-woman witch. Fuseli depicted the witches in Macbeth--see below; and even more frighteningly, the Spanish painter Goya envisions a witches' sabbath.
Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) The Three Witches, 1782-83

Francisco Goya (1746-1828)) The Witches' Sabbath, 1820-24

Heroes aren't often depicted in Romantic art but when they are, they are always much larger than life. Recall that Faust is perhaps the most important German Romantic poem--a poem about a man who dared to sell his soul to the Devil. Romantic heroes are often associated with sublime elements as well--alone on a sea, high on a mountain, or in conflict with grand natural forces.
	Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)
	The Lion Hunt 1861
	Lion hunts among the Moslems would of course be exotic subjects for Europeans. But it is also important that Delacroix pits man against the king of the beasts, against nature at its grandest. These are romantic heroes.
	John Martin (1789-1854)
	The Bard 1817
	The subject is from Thomas Gray's poem The Bard (1755) about the sole surviving bard. Edward I had ordered thaat all the bards be slaughtered; here the last bard stands high on the mountain, cursing the departing armies of the king.
	Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)
	Manfred on the Jungfrau 1840-61
	Manfred is the titular hero of Lord Byron's poem. A kind of Faust figure, he lives in the Alps, and grandly goes to his death at the end of the poem. Many artists throughout the 19th century depicted this Byronic hero.
We end where we began--with art based on a work by Lord Byron (as Delacroix's Death of Sardanapalus was). Instead of classical myth or history, romantic literature often inspired the artists of the day. Instead of the European aristocrats or middle classes depicted in 18th century works, romantic artists broaden the base of representation.