Romanticism cannot be identified with a single style, technique, or attitude, but romantic painting is generally characterized by a highly imaginative and subjective approach, emotional intensity, and a dreamlike or visionary quality. Romantic art characteristically strives to express by suggestion, states of feeling too intense, mystical, or elusive to be clearly defined. Realism, on the other hand, is an attempt to describe human behavior and surroundings or to represent figures and objects exactly as they act or appear in life. …
