Romanticism, History and Examples

Romanticism is a movement in art, literature and music of the early 1800's. Romanticism exalted the sublime beauty of nature, the artist's emotional, personal and imaginative faculties and individual genius and subjects that were sublime exotic, transcendental and mysterious. (Schlenoff 51) Ludwig Van Beethoven, John Keats and Theodore Gericault were three artists in this era that represent the common romanticism idea of emotion. Beethoven's ninth symphony and his piano sonata in F minor show his unique style at that time and also the transition from classicism to romanticism with a great sense of emotion that critics today are still talking about. John Keats' poems "To Hope" and "To" were, much like Beethoven's pieces, ahead of their time. Keats created poems that were new to the time and who demonstrated much needed emotion in the era. Theodore Gericault was an artist in the romantic era that showed his romanticism through dark emotions much like his pieces, "Severed Heads" and "Raft of the Medusa". These also demonstrated subjects that before were never seen.…