Romanticism vs. Realism
Romanticism – (1800-1860) an artistic movement in reaction
to the despair of life during the Industrial Revolution. The
Romantic period, which was an escape from despair, can be
seen in visual art, music and literature. Romantics valued
individual experiences, imagination, freedom and a break from
normal expectations of ‘art’.
Romanticism = idealistic, imaginative, implausible,
supernatural, artificial, exotic, complex, unrealistic, dramatic
and/or an escape from reality
Romanticism vs. Realism
Realism- (1860-1915) was an artistic movement
that tended to portray life as it was in reality. Realism is
considered to be a response to Romanticism and focused
on reality, particularly the unpleasant aspects of life.
Realism = truthful, accurate, normal, unpleasant aspects of
life, ordinary people, all classes of people, and/or focus on
struggles of everyday life
Romanticism vs. Realism
Romanticism: idealistic, imaginative, implausible,
supernatural, artificial, exotic, complex, unrealistic,
dramatic and/or an escape from reality
Realism: truthful, normal, unpleasant aspects
of life, ordinary people, all classes of people,
and/or focus on struggles of everyday life
Over the next several slides, you will be presented with examples or
visual art, music and literature that is associated with either Romanticism
or Realism. Can you tell the difference?
Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon
Crossing the Alps (1800)
Honoré Daumier’s The Third
Class Wagon 1862–1864
Romanticism vs. Realism
Realism:
truthful, normal,
unpleasant
aspects of life,
ordinary
people, all
classes of
people, and/or
focus on
struggles of
everyday life
REALISM…
Hubert von Herkomer,
Hard Times 1885
Why?
This depiction focuses on a working class
family and their unpleasant, real-life
struggles to survive
Romanticism vs. Realism
ROMANTICISM
Romanticism:
Karl Bryullov, The Last Day
idealistic,
of Pompeii, 1833
imaginative,
implausible,
supernatural,
artificial, exotic,
complex,
unrealistic,
dramatic and/or
an escape from
Even though the Volcano that destroyed
reality
Pompeii was a real historical event, this
depiction is romantic in that it is imaginative,
complex, exotic and dramatic.
Why?
Romanticism vs. Realism
ROMANTICISM
Beethoven’s 5th
Symphony, 1808
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v
=_4IRMYuE1hI
Beethoven’s 5th Symphony could be
described as imaginative, dramatic,
complex and an escape from reality
Romanticism vs. Realism
Workers performing strenuous work in a field
REALISM
Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857
Romanticism vs. Realism
A novel about Ichabod Crane, featuring superstition, ghosts,
headless horsemen and suspense…
Fictional, supernatural,
imaginative, escape from reality
ROMANTICISM
Washington Irving’s The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 1820
Romanticism vs. Realism
A novel about the turmoil in London and Paris that eventually
led to the French and American Revolutions
Real-life ordeals, focus on
different classes
REALISM
Charles Dickens, A Tale
of Two Cities, 1859
Romanticism vs. Realism
ROMANTICISM
Thomas Jones, The
Bard, 1774
A bard is an old English word for a poet or playwright. This image depicts the
1283 event in which English King Edward I (same king from the Braveheart
story) conquered Wales and ordered all the bards to be slaughtered.
Romanticism vs. Realism
A book written in 1826 about the struggles of a
handful of Mohican warriors caught up in the
French and Indian War (1757)
ROMANTICISM
James Fennimore
Cooper’s Last of the
Mohicans, 1826
Fictional,
imaginative,
dramatic
Romanticism vs. Realism
Real life struggles of workers
REALISM
Ilya Repin, Barge Haulers on the Volga, 1870–1873
Romanticism vs. Realism
ROMANTICISM
Eugène Delacroix, Liberty
Leading the People 1830
Idealistic, imaginative…
Romanticism vs. Realism
Ordinary activities of a worker
(laundress)
REALISM
Jean-Baptiste Greuze,
The Laundress, 1761
Romanticism vs. Realism
ROMANTICISM
Mozart’s Symphony #40, 1788
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v
=-hJf4ZffkoI
…could be described as imaginative,
dramatic, complex and an escape
from reality
Romanticism vs. Realism
REALISM
Ilya Repin, Religious
Procession in Kursk
Province, 1880–83
Dirty, dusty, poor and crippled
children at the forefront…
Romanticism vs. Realism
REALISM
Ilya Repin, Leo Tolstoy,
1887
Ilya Repin’s
portrait of Russian
novelist Leo
Tolstoy
Ordinary, normal, real-life (a famous
author with a book in a chair)
Romanticism vs. Realism
REALISM
Leo Tolstoy, War and
Peace, 1869
An 1869 novel detailing the
French Invasion of Russia in the
early 1800s and the effect on
Russian society, as seen from
the perspective of five Russian
aristocratic families….
Real-life struggles of life in Russia
Romanticism vs. Realism
ROMANTICISM
Ivan Aivazovsky, 1850,
"The Ninth Wave"
People clinging to debris from a
ship the morning after a
shipwreck. The warm tones
represents hope for survival.
This painting is sometimes
called "the most beautiful
painting in Russia“.
Romanticized, idealized, dramatized
Romanticism vs. Realism
ROMANTICISM
Caspar David Friedrich,
Wanderer Above the
Sea of Fog, 1818
Romanticized, idealized, dramatized