What are some examples of characteristics of Romanticism in music, paintings, and literature?
Romanticism is a style in the arts that emphasizes passion rather than reason, imagination and intuition rather than logic, expression rather than restraint and order. Romanticism is in direct opposition to classicism. The Romantic Movement usually refers to the period from the late 1700s to the mid-1800s. Romanticism stresses freedom for the individual, the hero against great odds, a longing for faraway places and places removed in time. In literature writers turned to the Middle Ages or places in folklore, myth and legend for inspiration. Examples of this are “Ivanhoe”, “Idylls of the King”, Goethe’s “Faust”, Grimm’s “Fairy Tales”, etc. In music, some of the same themes prevail. Wagner’s music based on Teutonic myth is certainly romantic. In painting emotional themes were used rather than “classical” ones. Subject were often far removed in distance and time from the present. Usually it was an appeal to the viewer’s emotions rather than his reason. Often the artist would use bold ligh
