Revolutions in the Arts
Chapter 8 Section 4
Artistic and Intellectual movements both reflect and fuel changes in Europe during the 1800’s
Romantic Movement
 The Ideas of Romanticism
 Romanticism – Interest in nature, preferring emotion, individuality
 Romanticism linked to folk traditions and nationalism.
 Romanticism rejects the Enlightenment ideas that elevate reason as the ultimate reality, and validated emotion
as an authentic experience of reality. Emotions of trepidation, horror, terror, and awe gain a new emphasis.
 Romanticism in Literature
 Poetry, music, and painting are the arts best suited to romanticism
 Many British romantic poets believe nature is the source of beauty
British Romantic Poets
 William Wordsworth - Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems
 Lord Byron - Don Juan
 Percy Bysshe Shelley - Prometheus Unbound (play); "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty"
 John Keats - "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (not pictured) - "Kubla Khan; or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment"
German writers
 Germany’s Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is a great early romanticist.
 28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832
 He wrote the play Faust about a doctor who sells his soul to the devil to get whatever he wants.
 Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, known as “The Brothers Grimm” popularized stories like:
 Rumpelstiltskin
 Snow White
 Rapunzel
 Cinderella
 Hansel and Gretel
 The Frog Prince
French Romantics
 Victor Hugo
o Les Miserables
o The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Gothic Fiction
 Gothic horror novels taking place in medieval castles become popular
 The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole is considered the first gothic novel.
 Walpole built his English villa Strawberry Hill in the Gothic Revival style much like a medieval castle.
Examples of Gothic Fiction
 The “penny dreadful” serialized novels such as The String of Pearls: A Romance (1846-47) which debuts the
character Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. “Penny dreadfuls” were the precursors to pulp
fiction and the modern comic book.
 Another popular penny dreadful was Varney the Vampire or The Feast of Blood anonymously written for
publication (1845-47).
 Stories by Edgar Allen Poe
 “The Fall of the House of Usher”



“The Pit and the Pendulum”
“The Tell Tale Heart”
The most well known gothic novel is Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.
Composers Emphasize Emotion
 Composers abandon Enlightenment style of music
 Ludwig van Beethoven leads the way from Enlightenment to romanticism
 Some composers draw on literature or cultural themes
Ludwig van Beethoven
 baptized 17 Dec. 1770 – 26 March 1827
 He was a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical
music, and remains one of the most acclaimed and influential composers of all time.
 Around 1796, Beethoven began to lose his hearing.
 Beethoven's hearing loss did not prevent his composing music, but it made playing at concerts—lucrative
sources of income—increasingly difficult.
Franz Liszt
 October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886
 Was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher.
 Liszt became renowned throughout Europe during the 19th century for his great skill as a performer.
 He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age and perhaps
the greatest pianist of all time.
Robert Schumann
 8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856
 German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is one of the most famous and important Romantic
composers of the 19th century.
Felix Mendelssohn
 February 3, 1809 – November 4, 1847
 German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period.
 He was born into a notable Jewish family, although he himself was brought up initially without religion, and
later as a Lutheran Christian. He was recognized early as a musical prodigy
Frederic Chopin
 1 March 1810 –
17 October 1849
 Was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music.
 The great majority of Chopin's compositions were written for the piano as solo instrument.
Hector Berlioz
 December 11, 1803 – March 8, 1869
 French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des
morts (Requiem).
 Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He
specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a conductor, he performed several concerts with more
than 1,000 musicians.
Guiseppe Verdi
 October 9 or 10, 1813 – January 27, 1901


an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th
century.
One of his most well known tunes is "La donna è mobile" ("Woman is fickle") from the opera Rigoletto
Richard Wagner
 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883
 German composer, conductor, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas.
 Unlike most other opera composers, Wagner wrote both the music and libretto for every one of his works.
 Wagner’s music is controversial because Wagner himself was antisemitic in his essays. The Nazis appropriated
much of Wagner’s writings and music for their own ends.
The Shift to Realism in the Arts
 Realism – art style attempting to depict life accurately
 Paintings and novels in this style show the working class
Photographers Capture Reality
 Daguerreotypes, early photographs, are surprisingly real
 They are named after their French inventor, Louis Daguerre
 William Talbot invents negative, allows copies of photograph
Writers Study Society
 Charles Dickens and Honore de Balzac write about society and class.
 Some realist literature sparks reforms in working conditions.
Honoré de Balzac
 French author who wrote a 100 novel series titled La Comédie humaine, “The Human Comedy,” about life in
France after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Émile Zola
 French author who wrote a series of realistic novels describing the conditions of French life in his time.
 One series of his novels was a 21 novel series titled Les Rougon-Macquart about a family between 1852 and
1870.
 One of his most famous books, Germinal, was in this series and is considered a classic in French literature.
Charles Dickens
 Dickens was in favor of liberal reforms in British society, and used his realistic descriptions of the plight of the
poor to promote such reform.
 His serialized works were popular in the United States as well.
 Works include:
o A Christmas Carol
o Oliver Twist
o Nicholas Nickleby
o Little Dorrit
o Hard Times
o A Tale of Two Cities
o David Copperfield
o Bleak House
Impressionists React Against Realism
 A New Movement
 Impressionism – art style that tries to capture precise moments in time
Life in the Moment
 Impressionists like Claude Monet portray life of rising middle class
 Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir also leading impressionists
Claude Monet
 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926
 Founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's
philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting.
The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise
Edgar Degas
 19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917
 French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing.
 He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be
called a realist.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
 February 25, 1841 – December 3, 1919
 Leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style.
Impressionist composers use music to create mental pictures