Analysis Of Art, Literature And Music In The Romantic Era
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic era) is an art, literature and music movement that originated in Europe at the end of the 18th century and peaked in most regions between about 1800 and 1850.
Romanticism is characterized by an emphasis on emotion and individualism, as well as praise of the past and nature. It was partly a reaction to the industrial revolution, to the aristocratic social and political norms of the Enlightenment. Music and literature are the main forms of the Romantic period, but also have a great impact on history and education. The Romantic period also had a great influence on politics. Romanticism emphasized that emotion was the true source of aesthetics, and romanticism gave new emphasis to fear and awe. Therefore, in the Romantic period, the artist's aesthetic standard has a new height.
For foreign writers, the French Revolution was more of an inspiration than of those who had experienced it. Romanticism developed late in French literature, especially in visual arts. In the decades following the French Revolution and Napoleon's last defeat in 1815, a new movement called Romanticism developed in France. If you know or learn about romanticism, you will find that it is a European movement that originated in the mid-eighteenth century in England. It was initially associated with literature and music in part in response to the changes in daily life brought about by the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Different artists have different styles, so there is no single form of French romanticism. Like most romantic art, French romanticism in the nineteenth century was not easy to define.
When Charles Baudelaire wrote about French Romanticism in the middle of the nineteenth century, he found it difficult to concretely define. Writing in his Salon of 1846, he approved that romanticism lies neither in the subjects that an artist chooses nor in his exact copying of truth, but he feels：“Romanticism and modern arts are one and the same thing, in other words: intimacy, spirituality, colour, yearning for the infinite, expressed by all the means the arts possess.”
“Liberty Leading the People” came from the revolution in July 1830. It also named “27th July 1830”. It was drawn to memorize Paris people overthrew the Bourbon dynasty. In 1815, when Napoleon been pushed down, LouisXVIII who escape to the outside of France came back to France. In 1830, LouisXVIII’s successor Charles X tried to strengthen the kingdom. But after that, the parliament had been dissolved. Paris people heard the news about the uprising, they all agreed. So they took their weapon and fight for overthrown Bourbon dynasty. Finally they success. They occupied the palace. Charle X ran away to England. In history, this had been called“three glorious days”. And inside this war, a girl raised the tricolour flag of the French Republic on the barricade for the first time. When this young girl put the flag at the top of the bridge next to Notre Dame in Paris, she was knocked down. The painter Delacroix saw this, so he decided to paint a painting as a permanent memorial.
The outline of Notre Dame Cathedral can be seen in the background. And these people came from different social level. We can identify through their clothes and weapon. For example, people that kneel on the ground might be the farmers, they might be some builders too. There are many possibilities so that we need to read them inside some data for that period. And the people that had a knife might be some workers that work inside the factories. A huge Liberty on the stage occupied a dominant position. But Delacroix didn’t let this girl became beautiful or what we could think of. It was likely to the normal people. She’s as simple as a farmer. In fact, she is naturalistic, so this gave Delacroix’s artwork a double meaning. When he created this painting, Delacroix used red, white and blue for the main colour of the artwork. And this colour is from the France flag. In this image, we can see that this artworks main topic shows us the brave side of women. We can see that the background is full of smoke, but the girl had been drawn very clearly. The red flag is particularly striking. With this comparison, the painting was more likely to the event in real life.
Hugo once said that: 'Romanticism, after all, is still liberalism in literature.”. Romanticism is connected with realism, it stresses nature. Romanticism attaches the importance to nature. This nature had two meanings, the first is return to nature truly. This nature has not been changed by people. The second is to escape from the tie so this is the real liberty. Only freedom can break the shackles of feudalism. So we can identify this is a romanticism artwork through the brief of learning the background and analyze the painting.
In 1822, Turkish captured the Greek island of Theo and robbed this poor island. The aggressor’s violent action let the whole Europeans angry. Byron is an outstanding European romantic poet, he lost his life because he fought directly for the Greek people. At the same time, Delacroix knew what was happening and he was really angry about the Turkish people. So he angrily painted two artworks: the massacre of Theo Island and Greece on the ruins of Misorungi. These two works are the examples of the barbaric acts of the aggressors and the just war in support of the Greek People.
Delacroix in France is one of the greatest artists in the world. He is a man who really prefers personality, imagination and colours. And this artwork showed us the Turkish army was killing Greek people. Inside this work of art, we can see the writers’ sympathy for them. Delacroix put him all energy on the comparison of the colour. He created a scene of hurry and confusion. He compared to light and shade and the posture of the people. And this work can clearly show us this is a tragedy. Artists’ final handling of Holocaust figures is less consistent with the study of women and the girl that sitting in cemeteries. The both in the back shows the artists emphatic clues. And for example, the dead man’s skin has a strong colour. And the naked people and the baby in the right were in sharp contrast. The whole work is very natural and can reflect the real life of the present age. It’s a classic example of romanticism. The Symphony of Fantasy was written by Hector Berlioz in 1830. In tradition, we knew that its name is the work’s captions. Berlioz's official name for his work is 'an artist's life interlude.'
Berlioz wrote this symphony after the inspiration of his great love of Ireland Shakespeare actress Harriet Constance Smithsonian. And this work has been named by the most important and the most representative symphonies in the romanticism. It is very popular all over the world. The French are elegant and meticulous, unlike the Germans in the serious and heavy pursuit, so in symphonies and other forms of the structure, the French had never played well. But luckily, Berlioz met romanticism. He wrote The Symphony of Fantasy. This symphony became the first that walked into romanticism, and this symphony broke the general belief that the French are not good at creating symphonies. We all knew that Berlioz created this symphony is because of the great love of the actress Harriet Smithson. This symphony can be in five parts. Every movements (parts) have a story. The first movement: Dream and Passion. This movement shows us this young artist’s restlessness before meeting his family. The second movement: The Ball. This movement shows us the main character found his lover on a busy and alive ball. The music structure is waltz. Put waltz in symphony is not normal, so this is a challenge for Berlioz. The third movement: Wild Scenery. We can heard the farmer are playing flute. With the music, the main character had a thought, he thought her lover betrayed him. In the fourth movement: he killed his lover, and he is going to die. In extremis, he saw his lover. But it gone after he died. The fifth movement: he saw some ghost and crazy and scary women are dancing on his funeral ceremony. The whole atmosphere became crazy, uncontrollable. And end. This is the whole story that Berlioz wanted to tell us. He used his character to create a completely different style for us and that is romanticism. He did not quote and objective title, but he made the symphony autobiographical so that we could understand the movement by hearing the movements in the symphony. This music is lyrical. It’s emotional. Therefore, lyric personal psychological characteristics features become an important feature of romantic music. It is not the same as classicism. Classical music reveals the human spirit and pours out the composer’s personal emotion. However, romanticism is different. Romanticism pursues truth and freedom. After the appeal of romanticism, the whole music had a different style. Romantic composers not only pops political, ideological, but also make bold innovations in art and music forms more creative. Therefore, the romantic period of music had a certain new spirit.
Charles Camille Saint-Sant, French composer and keyboard player. His works have a profound influence on the French music world and later generations. The important works include Animal Carnival, Skeleton Dance, Samson and Delilah, and so on. This symphony has a short strong and slow introduction. This part is a very tense piece of music in the movement. The atmosphere is very nervous. The music was soon forced to combine its elegant independence with the first excited theme. But this called the dead lyrics. It seems that the more ominous the atmosphere becomes, the more its call to the angry day of judgment is beginning to emerge. In the left part of that symphony, the lyrics became quick, the turbulence started. But it changed, however. A serious and rude topic came out from the deep sea. The music was a mess, its minds were struggling. Until the king of instrument’s energy been released. If we heard the whole symphony, we can hear a repeated theme. Its style is from a confidence choir. And with these themes, the death concept appeared.
This movement has the characteristics of the musicians in the romantic period. The romantic musicians are inspired by the great strength of the people in the struggle of the bourgeois national democratic revolution. In their works, they strive to truly express the spiritual outlook and social morality of ordinary people. Aesthetics and ideals, intoner to make the work understood, developed the name of the instrument and created a great deal of scalar music. So Charles Camille Saint Saenz’s music is a good example of romanticism.
