Its Growth and Characteristics

The Industrial Revolution The Age of Revolution Neoclassicism

The American Revolution (1783) The French Revolution (1789) Napoleonic Wars (1790-1815)

Emphasis on rationality, logic, and scientific observation of the outer world: passion should be controlled;

Social needs are more important than individual needs; valued stability, harmony, and a social hierarchy;

Believed that nature could be controlled by humans;

Truth and order can be found through scientific observation;

Romanticism emphasized imaginationRomantics believed that imagination helped

people not only perceive reality, but also create it while Neoclassical thought emphasized reason over imagination;

Romantic: imagination is the window to the soul

Neoclassical: reason is the mirror to reality

Romantics emphasized nature Perceived nature as an

organic whole as opposed to neoclassicists who saw nature as a mechanism (God as clock-maker);

Saw a connection between nature and life, a means of using nature to understand life.

John Constable

Romantics emphasized emotion over reason Intuition, instincts and feelings are more

important than logical reasoning.The source of art is the individual artist

rather than nature (making art’s purpose mimetic rather than revelatory).

This leads to an emotional, intuitive understanding of the world.

•Romantics emphasized individualism and rebellion over social stability;•Emphasis on introspection, psychology, melancholy and sadness.

A belief in the power of imagination and an interest in the supernatural and exotic

http://mural.uv.es/horpla/wordsworth.html

http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/history/march_of_the_machine.htm