Romanticism v realism

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Discuss the similarities and differences between two different art movements

Romanticism and realism are completely different movements in terms of their ideas, concepts, influences, techniques etc.

Romanticism is the term coined for the movement that had a significant impact on art and human creativity in the first half of the 19th century. It is known as the romantic movement of romantic revival. Its chief emphasis was upon freedom of individual and self expression, spontaneity and originality. The romantics focused on emotional impact of personal experience and individual imagination. This emotional impact used forms of nostalgia, horror, melancholy and sentimentality. It often showed interest in the realms of dream and folklore, superstition and legend. In a wider sense it questioned the great themes of our universe. Who are we? And why are we here?

Theodore Gericualt was the leading artist of this movement. “The raft of the medusa” took the ordeals of the survivors of the French ship medusa as the subject for the piece. The ship had foundered off the west coast of Africa in 1816, laden with Algerian immigrants. It is a subjective interpretation of the event. Fifteen corpses and survivors are piled onto one another, posing in a melodramatic manner, giving the entire painting an implication of pain, suffering, despair and death. A man raised on the shoulders of his comrades waves a piece of white cloth towards the horizon. The composition is chaotic and dramatic yet the chaos is controlled by use of structure. The painting is highly characterized by use of sharp light and shade as well as the naturalistic element. The light descends from the dark hues in the stormy clouds and into the open sea. Gericault avoided showing the most horrific aspects of the event in choosing to depict the moment when the castaways attempted to attract the attention of a passing ship. The work was intended to shock and he did so by stunning the viewer’s sensibilities. The painting itself is far beyond realism and borders exaggeration. You might say he had a ‘biblical’ intention by use of the pale yellow light descending into the horizon, signifying the importance and tragedy of the event.

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In contrast, realism was a movement that depicted contemporary people and events rather than grand, historical, or religious subjects. Artists of this movement painted their subjects as they appeared in reality rather than idealizing and glorifying. In opposition romanticism was often hyperbolic whereas realism was not. Realism exposed the truths and realities of people’s existence. It did not dabble in mythological subjects or the ‘false’.

However the movements themselves are similar in some ways. In terms of stylistic features both movements relied on individuality and originality. In addition, some paintings are spontaneous. They are also similar in ...

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