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Struggles of the Romantics
Commitment
But the Romantic is not continually the pry of spleen or melancholy... The committed man is the second face of the same man. It is shown by:
– The cult of passion as a source of inspiration and energy

Friedrich, 1818 - On the sailing

Friedrich, 1830 - Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon
– An ideal, which can be humanitarian, religious, patriotic

– A passion for liberty. Romantics often battled in nationalist movements of resistance to oppression. For example, Lord Byron died in the Greek independence war.

– Taste for social and political action. They participate in political battles, are often orators and sometimes deputies.

25 février 1848 - Lamartine

Delacroix, 1830 - Liberty Leading the People

Goya, 1814 - The Second of May 1808

Goya, 1814 - The Third of May 1808

Delacroix, 1827 - Greece Expiring on the Ruins of Missolonghi

Daumier, The Refugees
New values and sources of inspiration
Breaking from the centuries of classicism whose values were moderation, order and reason, the Romantics prefer:

the imaginary: dreams and day dreams,

the fantastic, hallucinations

Fuseli, 1781 - Nightmare

Fuseli, 1802 - Nightmare

Fuseli, 1793 - The Shepherd's Dream

Goya, 1815 - A Woman showing two other Women a monstruous Child

Goya, 1815 - A bad Woman

Géricault, 1819 - The Woman with the Monomania for Gambling
the exceptional, the excessive, opposing forces colliding.

Géricault, 1817 - Loose Horses Racing in Rome

Delacroix, 1824 - Horse Frightened by a Storm

Delacroix, 1827 - Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha

Delacroix, 1834 - Tiger Hunt

With romanticist drama, they rejuvenate literary forms, sometimes provoking scandals, in particular at the first performance of Hernani, from Victor Hugo

Granville, 1830 - La bataille d'Hernani

Daumier, 1856 - Melodrama
In France, the rediscover Shakespeare who had been rejected by the classicists.

Fuseli, 1781 - The sleepwalking Lady Macbeth

Chassériau, 1850 - Othello and Desdémone in Venice

To renew their sources of inspiration, they turn to:
The middle ages and gothic art despised since Renaissance

 Hugo, 1830 - Notre-Dame de Paris
Orientalism of Arab countries, exoticism.

Delacroix, 1832 - Carnets de voyage au Maroc

Delacroix, 1834 - The Women of Algiers

Chassériau, 1841 - Toilet of Esther

Lewis - Court in the House of the Painter in Cairo

exaltation of the "self" / melancholy / european art

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