Art History: Romanticism

Terms + History

Sublime: Specific type of landscape painting where nature is beautiful but can kill humans. More about feelings

• Neoclassicism (c. 1760–1798): Rooted in the Age of Enlightenment, it values reason, logic, order, and restraint. It looks backward to the harmonious, balanced ideals of ancient Greece and Rome.

• Romanticism (c. 1800–1850): Erupted as a reaction against Enlightenment rationalism and industrialization. It values emotion, imagination, individualism, and the sublime (an overwhelming mixture of awe and terror in nature).

Raft of the Meduse

• Subject Matter: Depicts the harrowing aftermath of the 1816 shipwreck of the French frigate Méduse, which ran aground off the coast due to an incompetent, politically appointed captain. Was appointed through cronyism (gettting a job thru friends/peers). About 147–150 people were abandoned on a makeshift raft for 13 days; only 15 survived after enduring starvation, madness, murder, and cannibalism

• Composition: Structured around two interlocking pyramidal/diagonal structures:

  • Left/First pyramid: Anchored by the ship's mast and ropes, pointing toward despair, death, and the weight of suffering. DESPAIR

  • Right/Second pyramid: Culminates in the peak figure waving a cloth (including Jean Charles, a Black survivor) desperately signaling the distant rescue ship, The Argus, on the horizon. HOPE

• Wave is coming → sublime

• Artist’s Preparation: Géricault went to extreme lengths for realism—interviewing actual survivors (including the ship's doctor and geographer), building a scale model of the raft, and studying severed limbs and corpses brought from the morgue to render skin pallor and decay accurately

• Political & Cultural Impact: A scathing political indictment of the restored French Bourbon monarchy and government corruption rather than a traditional classical or biblical hero narrative

The Third of May, 1808

• Event: Depicts the retaliatory execution of Spanish civilians by Napoleon’s French troops on May 3, 1808, after a popular anti-French uprising in Madrid on May 2, 1808

• The Firing Squad:

  • Rendered as an anonymous, mechanical, and faceless "wedge" of totalitarian force.

  • Their synchronized rifles and hidden faces strip away individual humanity

• Subversion of History Painting: Rejecting neoclassical heroism and sanitized battle scenes, Goya placed common, terrified victims "center stage".

• Anti-War Statement: Focused on the human cost, fear, and anonymity of modern warfare rather than glorifying victory.

The Slave Ship

• Subject/Inspiration: Based loosely on the 1781 historical incident of the Zong—a British slave ship whose captain threw over 130 sick and dying enslaved people overboard so the crew could collect insurance money designated only for those "lost at sea".

• Historical Timing: Painted in 1840—60 years after the Zong massacre and 7 years after the British Slavery Abolition Act of 1833—timed intentionally for an anti-slavery conference in London.

• Brushwork & Color: Use of thick, expressive strokes, violent reds, oranges, yellows, and deep blues. The brilliant, fiery sunset juxtaposes the horror below

• Nature acts as an indifferent, sublime, and potentially retributive force against human cruelty.

The Oxbow

• Divided Landscape: Split diagonally between the wild, stormy, dark wilderness on the left (shattered trees, tempestuous skies) and the sunny, settled, cultivated agricultural landscape on the right (neat fields, peaceful Connecticut River bend).

• The Artist’s Presence: Cole paints himself small and seated with an easel at the bottom center edge, looking out at the viewer as if asking whether America should remain untamed wilderness or move toward industrial/agricultural civilization (Manifest Destiny)

• Artist was a conservationist

• Sublime → man will leave its mark but in the end nature always wins

• Hudson River School → American Romanticism