Romantic Art - beauty of passion, nature

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At times hard to understand\comprehend, Romantic art of the early 19th Century has captured my heart. When you look at these, gaze into the pictures for at least 10 seconds, and allow yourself to feel the art instead of looking at the brushstrokes. It took me a long time and a lot of conversation with my Art Professor to get the hang of it, but eventually you can place yourself in a state of mind where the pieces actually affect you emotionally. Where there are pictures with people - ask yourself what they are doing. Simply breathtaking.

Bierstadt - Monumental Landscapes
--These need no explanation.






Turner - Figurative Landscapes using color to portray movement and emotion
--The movement and emotional affect is what this is about. The point is not to portray reality realistically.






Goya - From politics to insanity.
--Read the people, ask what they are doing.


You can almost feel the inner turmoil the beast below is feeling.



Delacroix - Passionate Neoclassicm and French Propaganda
--The first is a slaughter of a harem, the second is a revolution.


The woman below's name is Liberty, see how her strength and complete abandon leads the spirit of the people.



Gericault - Birth of French Romanticism through one painting, a historical atrocity (A real event, these people were abandoned and left to die. Of about 150, barely a dozen survived after two weeks)
--Notice how, as your eyes move downward, hope decreases.

I'm just going to self-bump once so more of us get to see these paintings. Perhaps I just love them so much I feel that more people should learn to appreciate them, especially with how hard it can be for us to interact with such abstract emotional things like this.

I agree.

What I also can't help but notice in most 19th century paintings is all the changes as though they are taking place among the contradictory of the serene.

Chaos mixed in with the serene. I think they're timeless as a movie would be if it were one in which many generations could identify with.

It's ashame not enough people appreciate art for thought or reflection but rather of aesthetic value. Not that there is a wrong or right in the way you look at a piece of art and what it means to you.

I agree, but there are many things the artists try to communicate in their works. When it comes to almost cartoony depictions like those two Goya paintings, or the figurative Turners - the thing to remember is that these are very skilled artists that can paint realistically. They choose not to in order to convey various messages.

And yes, the conflicting 19th century genres such as Romanticism and Realism are very interesting - moreover how they chose to break from the mandates of the upstanding French art academies and carve their own path, painting things that, at times, aren't so pleasant.