Romanticism

Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California 1868 Albert Bierstadt

“I think therefore I am.”

– from Discourse on method

• Rene Descartes

“to Create--to create--is proof of a divine presence.”

• from “The American Scholar• Ralph Waldo Emerson

Romanticism

• The rejection of the belief that all knowledge can be understood using reason, tradition, or established authority, whether that authority is religious, scientific, or political.

Characteristics of Romanticism

• The name given to the school of thought that considered the rational inferior to the intuitive

• That imagination, spontaneity, individual feelings, and nature were of greater value than reason, logic, planning and cultivation

• Romanticism developed as a reaction against rationalism as people realized the limits of reason

More Characteristics

• they believe that the imagination was able to discover truths that reason could not reach

• “truths” were usually associated with powerful emotions and beauty

• they did not reject logical thought, but for the purpose of art, they placed a new premium on non-rational experience

• it flourished during the half century before the Civil War

Romanticism emphasized• imagination• emotions• the individual and his or her relationship with nature• the source of life’s meaning and value lies in the heart• a concentration on life as it might be or how it should

be rather than life as it is• optimism• idealistic

Before Romanticism

• American writing had been

–religious

–economic

–political

The First Harvest

• first American born authors to receive international recognition for their use of American settings, characters, and themes

• first professional writers whose works are still widely read

• first to introduce fictional forms:• tales• romances• short stories• novels

Characteristics of the First Harvest

• an interest in the American past

• an emphasis on nature

• concentration on the inner world of human nature

Romantic point of view is shown in:

• Washington Irving– tales of folklore– adapted European legends– set in American landscapes– characterized by American stereotypes– reveal general truths about human nature

James Fenimore Cooper

• used actual events in American History as settings for novels

• his characters defined their personal values by their experience in the lawless wilderness

Themes in Romantic Literature

• Authors drew form these sources– the western frontier – established civilization of Europe– their own experience

Attitudes and tendencies associated with American

Romanticism

• distrust of civilization

• a nostalgia for the past

• a concern with individual freedom

• an interest in the supernatural

• a profound love of the beauty of nature

American Hero in Romantic Fiction

• The typical hero in American Romantic fiction is likely to have some or all of the following characteristics:– innocence

– a love of nature

– a distrust of town life

– the need to engage in a quest for some higher truth in the natural world

– an uneasiness with women who were usually taken to represent civilization and the impulse to domesticate

Transcendentalism

• German Romantic Philosopher Immanuel Kant:– The idea that matters of ultimate reality--God,

the cosmos, the self--transcend, or go beyond, human experience.

American Transcendentalists

– They sought the permanent spiritual reality behind physical appearances

– They were optimistic and believed in human perfectibility

– They used ideas from Europe, the Far East, and combined them with American thought

– They engaged in projects that tried to create the ideal reality--Brook Farm

American Writers

– Great transcendental thinkers• Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Henry David Thoreau

• Bronson Alcott

Anti Transcendentalists• Their writing is Romantic in that it

focuses on imagination, intuition, the power of nature and individual emotion, but they deal with the darker side of human nature.– Great Anti-transcendentalist writers:

• Herman Melville• Nathaniel Hawthorne• Edgar Allan Poe

A Special Thanks To:

• The National Museum of American Art

• The Hunter Museum of American Art

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art

• Boston College Museum of Architecture

• Great Buildings.com

• Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major

• Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21

Untitled ca. 1876 Fidelia Bridges

watercolor on paper sheet: 14 x 10 in.

(35.5 x 25.4 cm.)

PROMETHEUS BOUND, 1847 Thomas Cole (Bolton-le-Moor, England 1801 - 1848 Catskill, New York) Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower left: T. Cole/1847.

19th-Century American Painting of Coesa Tustennuggee

KNIGHT'S VALLEY FROMTHE SLOPES OF MOUNT ST. HELENA, 1873 Virgil Williams (Dixfield, Maine 1830- 1886 Saint Helena, California) Oil on canvas

Near Little Point, Catskill Mountains, Thomas Doughty, c. 1840, oil on canvas, 36 X 50 inches signed bottom, left of center. Gift of the Benwood Foundation.

Across the Prairie, Albert Bierstadt, 1864, oil on canvas, 127/8 x 19¼ inches, signed

and dated lower right. Museum purchase with funds donated anonymously.

Cabin in the Woods, North Conway, NH

Thomas Cole

c. 1848

Oil on canvas

39 x 30 inches.

Thomas Eakins, 1844-1916 The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single

Scull) 1871 Oil on canvas; 32 1/2 x 46 1/4 in. (82.6 x 117.5 cm)

Frederic Edwin Church

Frederic Edwin Church (United States, 1826-1900) Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, 1883 Oil on canvas, 40 x 60 1/2" Gift of Charles Parsons, 1905

George Caleb Bingham, 1811-1879 Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, about 1845 Oil on canvas; 29 x 36 1/4 in. ( 73.7 x 92.7 cm)

View at Conway

John Frederick Kensett

c. 1850

oil on panel

12 x 10 inches

Thorntails, Brazil

Martin Johnson Heade

c. 1863-65

Oil on canvas

12½ x 10¾ inches.

The Symbol, Asher B. Durand, 1856, 40 x 601/8 inches, oil on canvas.

The Constitution in Boston Harbor, Fitz Hugh Lane, c. 1848-1849, oil on canvas mounted on panel, 15¾ x 23¼ inches. Museum purchase.

Trout Fishing in the Adirondacks

Thomas Worthington Whittredge

c. 1862

oil on canvas

22¼ x 18¼ inches

signed lower right

Architecture

1810-1870

British House of Parliament

Friends of Schinkel's image bank Churches 1819-34 Karl Friedrich Schinkel

R. Upjohn: Trinity Church, New York, 1839-46

Gothic Revival

J. Renwick: St. Patrick's Church, NYC, 1858-79

Completed in 1855, the original Smithsonian Institution Building, ularly known as the Castle, was designed by architect James Renwick Jr., whose other works include St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City and the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. This Washington landmark is constructed of red sandstone from Seneca Creek, Maryland, in the Norman style (a 12th-century combination of late Romanesque and early Gothic motifs).

House, Kennebunkport, ME, c. 1860s

Second Empire or Baroque Style

G.J.F. Bryant: Old City Hall, Boston, 1862-65

Pennsylvania Academy of Art, by Frank Furness, at Philadelphia , Pennsylvania, 1871 to 1876.

R. Mills: Washington Monument, Washington, D.C., 1833-1880s

Egyptian Revival

Ames Free Library, by Henry Hobson Richardson, at North Easton, Massachusetts, 1877 to 1879.

Brooklyn Bridge, by John Augustus Roebling, at Brooklyn, New York, 1869 to 1883.