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125-520: Polish Romanticism, unlike Romanticism in some other parts of Europe, was not limited to literary and artistic concerns. Due to specific Polish historical circumstances, notably the partitions of Poland , it was also an ideological, philosophical , and political movement that expressed the ideals and way of life of a Polish society subjected to foreign rule and to ethnic and religious discrimination. Polish Romanticism had two distinct periods in terms of its literary forms: 1820–1832, and 1832–1864. In

250-485: A peptic ulcer , and died in Kraków on 1 November of internal bleeding. His funeral on 5 November drew large crowds, and his death was newsworthy in at least thirty two European newspapers. He was buried in Kraków's Rakowicki Cemetery . He is counted among the most significant of Polish painters , and considered by many as "Poland's greatest history painter" or as "a cult figure for the nation at large... [already] by

375-504: A reverence for nature and the supernatural , an idealization of the past as a nobler era , a fascination with the exotic and the mysterious , and a celebration of the heroic and the sublime . The Romanticist movement had a particular fondness for the Middle Ages , which to them represented an era of chivalry , heroism, and a more organic relationship between humans and their environment. This idealization contrasted sharply with

500-468: A "Late Romantic" period and " Neoromantic " revivals are also discussed. These extensions of the movement are characterized by a resistance to the increasingly experimental and abstract forms that culminated in modern art , and the deconstruction of traditional tonal harmony in music. They continued the Romantic ideal, stressing depth of emotion in art and music while showcasing technical mastery in

625-702: A "gift of the Polish nation". Being a member of the delegation delivering the canvas to Rome, Matejko was awarded the Knight Commander with Star of the Order of Pius IX . The painting is on permanent exhibition in the Sobieski Room at the Vatican Museums . Around that time he also became vocal on a number of political issues, publishing letters on topics such as Polish-Russian relations . He

750-588: A Czech from the village of Roudnice , was a graduate of the Hradec Králové school who later became a tutor and music teacher. He first worked for the Wodzicki family in Kościelniki, Poland, then moved to Kraków , where he married the half-German, half-Polish Joanna Karolina Rossberg (Rozberg). Jan was the ninth of eleven children. His mother died when he was very young and his older brother, Franciszek had

875-461: A background of cultural erosion in partitioned Poland Matejko published an illustrated album, Clothing in Poland ( Ubiory w Polsce ), a project reflecting his intense interest in the historical record of his nation and his desire to promote it among Polish people and incidentally stir their patriotism. His financial situation improved when he sold two paintings, The assassination of Wapowski during

1000-597: A building entirely dedicated to Matejko - The Jan Matejko House ( Dom Jana Matejki ), occupying his former studio and family home in Floriańska Street and opened in 1898. Another museum dedicated to Matejko, is the Jan Matejko Manor House (Dworek Jana Matejki w Krzesławicach), in the village of Krzesławice , where Matejko had bought a small estate in 1865. Over 80 painters were Matejko's students, many influenced during his tenure as director of

1125-660: A centre of German Romanticism, where writers and poets such as Clemens Brentano , Achim von Arnim , and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff ( Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts ) met regularly in literary circles. Important motifs in German Romanticism are travelling, nature, for example the German Forest , and Germanic myths . The later German Romanticism of, for example E. T. A. Hoffmann 's Der Sandmann ( The Sandman ), 1817, and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff 's Das Marmorbild ( The Marble Statue ), 1819,

1250-629: A collection of versified folk tales, in 1806–1808. The first collection of Grimms' Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm was published in 1812. Unlike the much later work of Hans Christian Andersen , who was publishing his invented tales in Danish from 1835, these German works were at least mainly based on collected folk tales , and the Grimms remained true to the style of the telling in their early editions, though later rewriting some parts. One of

1375-684: A complicated history. By the 18th century, European languages—notably German, French and Slavic languages—were using the term "Roman" in the sense of the English word " novel ", i.e. a work of popular narrative fiction. This usage derived from the term "Romance languages" , which referred to vernacular (or popular) language in contrast to formal Latin . Most such novels took the form of " chivalric romance ", tales of adventure, devotion and honour. The founders of Romanticism, critics (and brothers) August Wilhelm Schlegel and Friedrich Schlegel , began to speak of romantische Poesie ("romantic poetry") in

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1500-428: A considerable number always had, or developed, a wide range of conservative views, and nationalism was in many countries strongly associated with Romanticism, as discussed in detail below. In philosophy and the history of ideas, Romanticism was seen by Isaiah Berlin as disrupting for over a century the classic Western traditions of rationality and the idea of moral absolutes and agreed values, leading "to something like

1625-612: A defence of religion and the medieval spirit ( Génie du christianisme , 1802), and finally in the 1830s and 1840s his enormous autobiography Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe ("Memoirs from beyond the grave"). After the Bourbon Restoration , French Romanticism developed in the lively world of Parisian theatre , with productions of Shakespeare , Schiller (in France a key Romantic author), and adaptations of Scott and Byron alongside French authors, several of whom began to write in

1750-482: A distinct national identity and began to enjoy an international reputation. Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) laid the foundations of a reawakening of interest in older Scottish literature, as well as leading the trend for pastoral poetry, helping to develop the Habbie stanza as a poetic form . James Macpherson (1736–1796) was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation. Claiming to have found poetry written by

1875-529: A dramatist, with his play on the life of the English poet Chatterton (1835) perhaps his best work. George Sand was a central figure of the Parisian literary scene, famous both for her novels and criticism and her affairs with Chopin and several others; she too was inspired by the theatre, and wrote works to be staged at her private estate . French Romantic poets of the 1830s to 1850s include Alfred de Musset , Gérard de Nerval , Alphonse de Lamartine and

2000-625: A further scholarship to study at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna , but after only a few days and a major quarrel with Christian Ruben , Matejko returned to Kraków. He set up a studio at his family home in Floriańska Street . It took years before he met with commercial success. He struggled as the proverbial "starving artist", who finally celebrated when he managed to sell the Shuyski Tsars... canvas for five florins . In 1860, against

2125-441: A group of twelve drawings with accompanying commentary, The History of civilisation in Poland ( Dzieje Cywilizacji w Polsce ). Between 1890 and 1892, he published a series of works on paper, portraying all the monarchs of Poland ( Poczet królów i książąt polskich - The kings and princes of Poland , including queens), whose popularity turned them into the canon portrayals of their subjects. 1891 marked his Constitution of

2250-658: A hand in the manner of his upbringing. He grew up in a kamienica building on Floriańska Street . After the death of his mother in 1845, Jan and his siblings were cared for by his maternal aunt, Anna Zamojska. At a young age he witnessed the Kraków revolution of 1846 and the 1848 siege of Kraków by the Austrians, two events which put an end to the Free City of Kraków . Two of his older brothers served in both armed conflicts, under General Józef Bem . One fell in battle and

2375-487: A highly critical view of recent social changes, including urbanization , brought about by the Industrial Revolution . Romanticism lionized the achievements of "heroic" individuals—especially artists, who began to be represented as cultural leaders (one Romantic luminary, Percy Bysshe Shelley , described poets as the "unacknowledged legislators of the world" in his " Defence of Poetry "). Romanticism placed

2500-612: A longing for the unbounded and the indefinable, for perpetual movement and change, an effort to return to the forgotten sources of life, a passionate effort at self-assertion both individual and collective, a search after means of expressing an unappeasable yearning for unattainable goals". Romantic artists also shared a strong belief in the importance and inspirational qualities of Nature. Romantics were distrustful of cities and social conventions. They deplored Restoration and Enlightenment Era artists who were largely concerned with depicting and critiquing social relations, thereby neglecting

2625-408: A mature Romantic style. By the time of World War I , though, the cultural and artistic climate had changed to such a degree that Romanticism essentially dispersed into subsequent movements. The final Late Romanticist figures to maintain the Romantic ideals died in the 1940s. Though they were still widely respected, they were seen as anachronisms at that point. Romanticism was a complex movement with

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2750-408: A novel by Laurence Sterne (1759–1767), introduced a whimsical version of the anti-rational sentimental novel to the English literary public. An early German influence came from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , whose 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther had young men throughout Europe emulating its protagonist, a young artist with a very sensitive and passionate temperament. At that time Germany

2875-591: A number of prominent members of the Polish nobility , who saw the painting as an indictment of their entire social class. His paintings were subject to censorship in the Russian Empire . Nazi Germany planned to destroy both The Battle of Grunwald and The Prussian Homage , which the authorities saw as an offence against the German view of history. They formed part of the very many Polish paintings and art which

3000-527: A quarrel and recreated in 1879) and a self-portrait (1892). Altogether Matejko authored 320 oil paintings and several thousand drawings and watercolours . He also designed the monumental polychrome murals for the Brick Gothic St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków (1889–1891), which in 1978 became a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside the Historic Centre of Kraków . Matejko suffered from

3125-560: A symbol of his "royal status in fine art". In 1879 came his Rok 1863 - Polonia ( The Year 1863 - Polonia ), his depiction of the January Uprising . Begun in 1864 as the Uprising was waning, he abandoned the canvas for a number of years, perhaps due to the loss of several close friends and family members in the conflict. It languished unfinished until prince Władysław Czartoryski became interested in acquiring it. To this day it

3250-463: A time when Poland was partitioned and lacked political autonomy. At the same time, Matejko's painting style has been criticised as old-fashioned and overly theatrical, labeled as "antiquarian realism". His works often lost their nuanced historical significance when displayed abroad due to the audience's unfamiliarity with Polish history. Matejko's support for the Polish cause was not just through his art; he also contributed financially and materially to

3375-439: A variety of viewpoints that permeated Western civilization across the globe. The movement and its opposing ideologies mutually shaped each other over time. After its end, Romantic thought and art exerted a sweeping influence on art and music , speculative fiction , philosophy , politics , and environmentalism that has endured to the present day. The movement is the reference for the modern notion of " romanticization " and

3500-583: A very typical view, and about 1830, perhaps a little later than some other critics. Others have proposed 1780–1830. In other fields and other countries the period denominated as Romantic can be considerably different; musical Romanticism , for example, is generally regarded as only having ceased as a major artistic force as late as 1910, but in an extreme extension the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss are described stylistically as "Late Romantic" and were composed in 1946–1948. However, in most fields

3625-504: Is considered by many as the most celebrated Polish painter , and sometimes as the "national painter" of Poland. Matejko spent most of his life in Kraków . He enrolled at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts at age fourteen, where he studied under notable artists such as Wojciech Korneli Stattler and Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and completed his first major historical painting in 1853. His early exposure to revolutions in Kraków and

3750-401: Is considered unfinished. 1880-1882 were taken up with another large work, The Prussian Tribute ( Hołd Pruski ) which Matejko gifted to "the Polish nation". It earned him the honorary citizenship of Kraków. One of the city's squares was renamed Matejko Square. In 1883 he finished Jan Sobieski at Vienna ( Jan Sobieski pod Wiedniem ) which came to be presented to Pope Leo XIII as

3875-445: Is most evident in the aesthetics of romanticism, where the notion of eternal models, a Platonic vision of ideal beauty, which the artist seeks to convey, however imperfectly, on canvas or in sound, is replaced by a passionate belief in spiritual freedom, individual creativity. The painter, the poet, the composer do not hold up a mirror to nature, however ideal, but invent; they do not imitate (the doctrine of mimesis), but create not merely

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4000-651: Is now most highly regarded for his short lyrics and his generally unromantic prose writings, especially his letters, and his unfinished satire Don Juan . Unlike many Romantics, Byron's widely publicised personal life appeared to match his work, and his death at 36 in 1824 from disease when helping the Greek War of Independence appeared from a distance to be a suitably Romantic end, entrenching his legend. Keats in 1821 and Shelley in 1822 both died in Italy, Blake (at almost 70) in 1827, and Coleridge largely ceased to write in

4125-469: Is often called "romantic originality". The translator and prominent Romantic August Wilhelm Schlegel argued in his Lectures on Dramatic Arts and Letters that the most valuable quality of human nature is its tendency to diverge and diversify. According to Isaiah Berlin , Romanticism embodied "a new and restless spirit, seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms, a nervous preoccupation with perpetually changing inner states of consciousness,

4250-403: Is seen as a valuable historical reference. Critics of his work have pointed to his use of traditional, outdated or bombastic painting style, discrediting him for "antiquarian realism" and "theatrical effects". At exhibitions abroad, the nuanced historical context of his works was often lost on foreign audiences. Occasionally his paintings would cause controversy. For example, Rejtan offended

4375-853: The Ancien Régime , and the French Revolution had been more of an inspiration to foreign writers than those experiencing it at first-hand. The first major figure was François-René de Chateaubriand , an aristocrat who had remained a royalist throughout the Revolution, and returned to France from exile in England and America under Napoleon, with whose regime he had an uneasy relationship. His writings, all in prose, included some fiction, such as his influential novella of exile René (1802), which anticipated Byron in its alienated hero, but mostly contemporary history and politics, his travels,

4500-504: The Origin of Species , the transition from widespread revolution in Europe to a more conservative climate, and a shift in public consciousness to the immediate impact of technology and urbanization on the working class . By World War I , Romanticism was overshadowed by new cultural, social, and political movements, many of them hostile to the perceived illusions and preoccupations of

4625-649: The Cross of Independence by President Stanisław Wojciechowski . ] After 1865 Matejko's international recognition grew. His Skarga's Sermon was awarded a gold medal at the 1865 Paris Salon, prompting Count Maurycy Potocki  [ pl ] to buy it for 10,000 florins. In 1867, his painting Rejtan was awarded a gold medal at the World Exhibition in Paris and was acquired by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria for 50,000 franks. His next major painting

4750-585: The Crusades that he had researched to a degree that was new in literature. In contrast to Germany, Romanticism in English literature had little connection with nationalism, and the Romantics were often regarded with suspicion for the sympathy many felt for the ideals of the French Revolution , whose collapse and replacement with the dictatorship of Napoleon was, as elsewhere in Europe, a shock to

4875-514: The January Uprising of 1863, in which he did not directly take part on account of his poor health, Matejko supported it financially, donating most of his savings to the cause, and personally transporting arms to an insurgents' camp. Subsequently, his Skarga's Sermon ( Kazanie Skargi ), May 1864, was exhibited in the gallery of the Kraków Society of Friends of Fine Arts , which gained him much publicity. On 5 November that same year, he

5000-550: The January Uprising of 1863 . Later, he became director of the art academy in Kraków, which was eventually renamed the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts . A number of his students became prominent artists in their own right, including Maurycy Gottlieb , Jacek Malczewski , Józef Mehoffer and Stanisław Wyspiański . He received several honors during his lifetime, including the French Légion d'honneur . Matejko

5125-556: The Kraków Society of Friends of Fine Arts from 1855. His graduation project in 1858 was Sigismund I the Old ennobles professors of the Jagiellonian University ( Zygmunt I nadaje szlachectwo profesorom Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego ) and proved to be seminal. After graduation in 1859, Matejko received a scholarship to study with Hermann Anschütz at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich . The following year he received

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5250-545: The Lake Poets were widely regarded as a marginal group of radicals, though they were supported by the critic and writer William Hazlitt and others. In contrast, Lord Byron and Walter Scott achieved enormous fame and influence throughout Europe with works exploiting the violence and drama of their exotic and historical settings; Goethe called Byron "undoubtedly the greatest genius of our century". Scott achieved immediate success with his long narrative poem The Lay of

5375-556: The Romantic movement or Romantic era ) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjectivity , imagination , and appreciation of nature in society and culture in response to the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution . Romanticists rejected

5500-404: The national poet of Scotland and a major influence on the Romantic movement. His poem (and song) " Auld Lang Syne " is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and " Scots Wha Hae " served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country. Scott began as a poet and also collected and published Scottish ballads. His first prose work, Waverley in 1814, is often called

5625-526: The natural sciences . Romanticism had a significant and complex effect on politics: Romantic thinking influenced conservatism , liberalism , radicalism , and nationalism . Romanticism prioritized the artist's unique, individual imagination above the strictures of classical form. The movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience. It granted a new importance to experiences of sympathy , awe , wonder , and terror , in part by naturalizing such emotions as responses to

5750-475: The social conventions of the time in favour of a moral outlook known as individualism . They argued that passion and intuition were crucial to understanding the world, and that beauty is more than merely an affair of form , but rather something that evokes a strong emotional response. With this philosophical foundation, the Romanticists elevated several key themes to which they were deeply committed:

5875-634: The supernatural / occult and human psychology . Romanticism tended to regard satire as something unworthy of serious attention, a view still influential today. The Romantic movement in literature was preceded by the Enlightenment and succeeded by Realism . The precursors of Romanticism in English poetry go back to the middle of the 18th century, including figures such as Joseph Warton (headmaster at Winchester College ) and his brother Thomas Warton , Professor of Poetry at Oxford University . Joseph maintained that invention and imagination were

6000-399: The "beautiful" and the "sublime". Romantics stressed the nobility of folk art and ancient cultural practices, but also championed radical politics , unconventional behavior, and authentic spontaneity. In contrast to the rationalism and classicism of the Enlightenment , Romanticism revived medievalism and juxtaposed a pastoral conception of a more "authentic" European past with

6125-730: The "romantic harp" and "classic lyre", but in 1820 Byron could still write, perhaps slightly disingenuously, It is only from the 1820s that Romanticism certainly knew itself by its name, and in 1824 the Académie française took the wholly ineffective step of issuing a decree condemning it in literature. The period typically called Romantic varies greatly between different countries and different artistic media or areas of thought. Margaret Drabble described it in literature as taking place "roughly between 1770 and 1848", and few dates much earlier than 1770 will be found. In English literature, M. H. Abrams placed it between 1789, or 1798, this latter

6250-479: The 1790s, contrasting it with "classic" but in terms of spirit rather than merely dating. Friedrich Schlegel wrote in his 1800 essay Gespräch über die Poesie ("Dialogue on Poetry"): The modern sense of the term spread more widely in France by its persistent use by Germaine de Staël in her De l'Allemagne (1813), recounting her travels in Germany. In England Wordsworth wrote in a preface to his poems of 1815 of

6375-406: The 1820s. Wordsworth was by 1820 respectable and highly regarded, holding a government sinecure , but wrote relatively little. In the discussion of English literature, the Romantic period is often regarded as finishing around the 1820s, or sometimes even earlier, although many authors of the succeeding decades were no less committed to Romantic values. The most significant novelist in English during

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6500-566: The 3 May ( Konstytucja 3 Maja ). He went on to compose another large scale work, The Oaths of Jan Kazimierz ( Śluby Jana Kazimierza ), but death intervened. In 1892, a year before his death, he completed his Self-portrait ( Autoportret ). In addition to the history paintings Matejko was a prolific portraitist. His subjects included Jagiellonian University rectors Józef Szujski and Stanisław Tarnowski , and numerous portraits of family and friends, including Wife in her wedding dress ("Żona w sukni ślubnej") (1865, destroyed by his wife during

6625-548: The French retreat from Moscow in 1812, fantasies of heroism and adventure had little appeal for him, and like Goya he is often seen as a forerunner of Realism. His most important works are Le Rouge et le Noir ( The Red and the Black , 1830) and La Chartreuse de Parme ( The Charterhouse of Parma , 1839). Romanticism in Poland is often taken to begin with the publication of Adam Mickiewicz 's first poems in 1822, and end with

6750-464: The Germans planned to destroy in their war on Polish culture , but the Polish resistance successfully hid both. Matejko's aim was to focus on major themes in Polish history using historical sources to paint events in minute historical detail. His earliest paintings are purely historical depictions without didactic content. The later works, starting with Stańczyk (1862), are intended to inspire

6875-534: The Kraków School of Fine Arts. He accepted the Kraków position, and was for many years its principal ( rector ). In 1874, he finished Zawieszenie dzwonu Zygmunta ( The Hanging of the Sigismund bell ). In 1878, he produced another masterpiece, The Battle of Grunwald . That year he received an "honorary grand gold" medal in Paris, while Kraków city council presented him with a ceremonial scepter , as

7000-616: The Last Minstrel in 1805, followed by the full epic poem Marmion in 1808. Both were set in the distant Scottish past, already evoked in Ossian ; Romanticism and Scotland were to have a long and fruitful partnership. Byron had equal success with the first part of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage in 1812, followed by four "Turkish tales", all in the form of long poems, starting with The Giaour in 1813, drawing from his Grand Tour , which had reached Ottoman Europe, and orientalizing

7125-486: The Polish Romantics worked abroad, often banished from Poland by the occupying powers due to their politically subversive ideas. Their work became increasingly dominated by the ideals of political struggle for freedom and their country's sovereignty . Elements of mysticism became more prominent. There developed the idea of the poeta wieszcz (the prophet). The wieszcz (bard) functioned as spiritual leader to

7250-436: The Romantic interest in folk literature, but neither had a fully Romantic approach to life or their work. Though they have modern critical champions such as György Lukács , Scott's novels are today more likely to be experienced in the form of the many operas that composers continued to base on them over the following decades, such as Donizetti 's Lucia di Lammermoor and Vincenzo Bellini 's I puritani (both 1835). Byron

7375-472: The Romantic period is said to be over by about 1850, or earlier. The early period of the Romantic era was a time of war, with the French Revolution (1789–1799) followed by the Napoleonic Wars until 1815. These wars, along with the political and social turmoil that went along with them, served as the background for Romanticism. The key generation of French Romantics born between 1795 and 1805 had, in

7500-498: The Romanticist movement and its ideals. The events and ideologies of the French Revolution were also direct influences on the movement; many early Romantics throughout Europe sympathized with the ideals and achievements of French revolutionaries. A confluence of circumstances led to Romanticism's decline in the mid-19th century, including (but not limited to) the rise of Realism and Naturalism , Charles Darwin 's publishing of

7625-530: The Romantics. However, Romanticism has had a lasting impact on Western civilization, and many works of art, music, and literature that embody the Romantic ideals have been made after the end of the Romantic Era. The movement's advocacy for nature appreciation is cited as an influence for current nature conservation efforts. The majority of film scores from the Golden Age of Hollywood were written in

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7750-721: The act of "romanticizing" something. For most of the Western world, Romanticism was at its peak from approximately 1800 to 1850. The first Romantic ideas arose from an earlier German Counter-Enlightenment movement called Sturm und Drang (German: "Storm and Stress"). This movement directly criticized the Enlightenment's position that humans can fully comprehend the world through rationality alone, suggesting that intuition and emotion are key components of insight and understanding. Published in 1774, " The Sorrows of Young Werther " by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe began to shape

7875-657: The ancient bard Ossian , he published translations that acquired international popularity, being proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of the Classical epics . Fingal , written in 1762, was speedily translated into many European languages, and its appreciation of natural beauty and treatment of the ancient legend has been credited more than any single work with bringing about the Romantic movement in European, and especially in German literature, through its influence on Johann Gottfried von Herder and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . It

8000-448: The beginning of a tradition of resistance to Enlightenment rationalism—a "Counter-Enlightenment"— to be associated most closely with German Romanticism . Another early definition comes from Charles Baudelaire : "Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling." The end of the Romantic era is marked in some areas by a new style of Realism , which affected literature, especially

8125-486: The best known works, which became a paradigm of the French Romantic movement. The preface to his unperformed play Cromwell gives an important manifesto of French Romanticism, stating that "there are no rules, or models". The career of Prosper Mérimée followed a similar pattern; he is now best known as the originator of the story of Carmen , with his novella published 1845. Alfred de Vigny remains best known as

8250-478: The brothers, Jacob , published in 1835 Deutsche Mythologie , a long academic work on Germanic mythology. Another strain is exemplified by Schiller's highly emotional language and the depiction of physical violence in his play The Robbers of 1781. In English literature , the key figures of the Romantic movement are considered to be the group of poets including William Wordsworth , Samuel Taylor Coleridge , John Keats , Lord Byron , Percy Bysshe Shelley and

8375-418: The chief qualities of a poet. The Scottish poet James Macpherson influenced the early development of Romanticism with the international success of his Ossian cycle of poems published in 1762, inspiring both Goethe and the young Walter Scott . Thomas Chatterton is generally considered the first Romantic poet in English. Both Chatterton and Macpherson's work involved elements of fraud, as what they claimed

8500-574: The coronation of Henri de Valois ( Zabicie Wapowskiego w czasie koronacji Henryka Walezego , 1861) and Jan Kochanowski over the body of his daughter Urszulka ( Jan Kochanowski nad zwłokami Urszulki , 1862), which settled his debts. 1862 saw the completion of his Stańczyk , initially received without much acclaim, but in due course becoming one of Matejko's best known works. It marks a manifest departure in Matejko's art, from mere illustrator of history to commentator upon its moral content. During

8625-588: The crushing of the January Uprising of 1863 against the Russians. It was strongly marked by interest in Polish history. Polish Romanticism revived the old "Sarmatism" traditions of the szlachta or Polish nobility. Old traditions and customs were revived and portrayed in a positive light in the Polish messianic movement and in works of great Polish poets such as Adam Mickiewicz ( Pan Tadeusz ), Juliusz Słowacki and Zygmunt Krasiński . This close connection between Polish Romanticism and Polish history became one of

8750-437: The defining qualities of the literature of Polish Romanticism period, differentiating it from that of other countries. They had not suffered the loss of national statehood as was the case with Poland. Influenced by the general spirit and main ideas of European Romanticism, the literature of Polish Romanticism is unique, as many scholars have pointed out, in having developed largely outside of Poland and in its emphatic focus upon

8875-524: The difficulty of defining Romanticism in his seminal article "On the Discrimination of Romanticisms" in his Essays in the History of Ideas (1948); some scholars see Romanticism as essentially continuous with the present, some like Robert Hughes see in it the inaugural moment of modernity , while writers of the 19th Century such as Chateaubriand , Novalis and Samuel Taylor Coleridge saw it as

9000-664: The early nineteenth century, caused Edinburgh to emerge as the cultural capital of Britain and become central to a wider formation of a "British Isles nationalism". Scottish "national drama" emerged in the early 1800s, as plays with specifically Scottish themes began to dominate the Scottish stage. Theatres had been discouraged by the Church of Scotland and fears of Jacobite assemblies. In the later eighteenth century, many plays were written for and performed by small amateur companies and were not published and so most have been lost. Towards

9125-444: The end of the century there were " closet dramas ", primarily designed to be read, rather than performed, including work by Scott, Hogg, Galt and Joanna Baillie (1762–1851), often influenced by the ballad tradition and Gothic Romanticism. Romanticism was relatively late in developing in French literature , more so than in the visual arts. The 18th-century precursor to Romanticism, the cult of sensibility, had become associated with

9250-414: The exotic and historical settings pioneered by the Romantics, but experimentation with form and technique was generally reduced, often replaced with meticulous technique, as in the poems of Tennyson or many paintings. If not realist, late 19th-century art was often extremely detailed, and pride was taken in adding authentic details in a way that earlier Romantics did not trouble with. Many Romantic ideas about

9375-572: The father of Polish school of landscape painting, as well as the renowned historical painter Leopold Loeffler invited to Kraków by Matejko to teach the future luminaries of the Young Poland movement including Wyspiański , Tetmajer , Malczewski and Weiss among others. The music of Frédéric Chopin and Stanisław Moniuszko inspired the development of Polish Romantic movement in all fields of creative expression. [REDACTED] Category Romanticism Romanticism (also known as

9500-620: The fields of intellectual history and literary history throughout the 20th century, without any great measure of consensus emerging. That it was part of the Counter-Enlightenment , a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment , is generally accepted in current scholarship. Its relationship to the French Revolution , which began in 1789 in the very early stages of the period, is clearly important, but highly variable depending on geography and individual reactions. Most Romantics can be said to be broadly progressive in their views, but

9625-499: The first historical novel. It launched a highly successful career, with other historical novels such as Rob Roy (1817), The Heart of Midlothian (1818) and Ivanhoe (1820). Scott probably did more than any other figure to define and popularise Scottish cultural identity in the nineteenth century. Other major literary figures connected with Romanticism include the poets and novelists James Hogg (1770–1835), Allan Cunningham (1784–1842) and John Galt (1779–1839). Scotland

9750-415: The first period, Polish Romantics were strongly influenced by other European Romantics. Their art featured emotionalism and irrationality , fantasy and imagination, personality cults , folklore and country life, and the propagation of ideals of freedom. The most famous writers of the period were Adam Mickiewicz , Seweryn Goszczyński , Tomasz Zan and Maurycy Mochnacki . In the second period, many of

9875-409: The flamboyant Théophile Gautier , whose prolific output in various forms continued until his death in 1872. Stendhal is today probably the most highly regarded French novelist of the period, but he stands in a complex relation with Romanticism, and is notable for his penetrating psychological insight into his characters and his realism, qualities rarely prominent in Romantic fiction. As a survivor of

10000-476: The highest importance on the freedom of the artists to authentically express their sentiments and ideas. Romantics like the German painter Caspar David Friedrich believed that an artist's emotions should dictate their formal approach; Friedrich went as far as declaring that "the artist's feeling is his law". The Romantic poet William Wordsworth , thinking along similar lines, wrote that poetry should begin with "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings", which

10125-454: The imagination of born artists followed instinctively when these individuals were, so to speak, "left alone" during the creative process. These "natural laws" could support a wide range of different formal approaches: as many, perhaps, as there were individuals making personally meaningful works of art. Many Romantics believed that works of artistic genius were created " ex nihilo ", "from nothing", without recourse to existing models. This idea

10250-516: The issue of Polish nationalism . The Polish intelligentsia, along with leading members of its government, left Poland in the early 1830s, during what is referred to as the " Great Emigration ", resettling in France, Germany, Great Britain, Turkey, and the United States. Jan Matejko Jan Alojzy Matejko ( Polish pronunciation: [ˈjan aˈlɔjzɨ maˈtɛjkɔ] ; also known as Jan Mateyko ; 24 June 1838 – 1 November 1893)

10375-495: The late 1820s. Cliques of pro- and anti-Romantics developed, and productions were often accompanied by raucous vocalizing by the two sides, including the shouted assertion by one theatregoer in 1822 that "Shakespeare, c'est l'aide-de-camp de Wellington" ("Shakespeare is Wellington 's aide-de-camp "). Alexandre Dumas began as a dramatist, with a series of successes beginning with Henri III et sa cour (1829) before turning to novels that were mostly historical adventures somewhat in

10500-521: The lives of the poor in his native Lake District , or his feelings about nature—which he more fully developed in his long poem The Prelude , never published in his lifetime. The longest poem in the volume was Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner , which showed the Gothic side of English Romanticism, and the exotic settings that many works featured. In the period when they were writing,

10625-409: The lush orchestral Romantic style, and this genre of orchestral cinematic music is still often seen in films of the 21st century. The philosophical underpinnings of the movement have influenced modern political theory, both among liberals and conservatives . Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as the glorification of the past and nature, preferring

10750-444: The manner of Scott, most famously The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo , both of 1844. Victor Hugo published as a poet in the 1820s before achieving success on the stage with Hernani —a historical drama in a quasi-Shakespearean style that had famously riotous performances on its first run in 1830. Like Dumas, Hugo is best known for his novels, and was already writing The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831), one of

10875-408: The means but the goals that they pursue; these goals represent the self-expression of the artist's own unique, inner vision, to set aside which in response to the demands of some "external" voice—church, state, public opinion, family friends, arbiters of taste—is an act of betrayal of what alone justifies their existence for those who are in any sense creative. Arthur Lovejoy attempted to demonstrate

11000-401: The medieval over the classical. Romanticism was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution , and the prevailing ideology of the Age of Enlightenment , especially the scientific rationalization of Nature. The movement's ideals were embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature; it also had a major impact on historiography , education, chess , social sciences , and

11125-433: The melting away of the very notion of objective truth", and hence not only to nationalism, but also fascism and totalitarianism , with a gradual recovery coming only after World War II. For the Romantics, Berlin says, in the realm of ethics, politics, aesthetics it was the authenticity and sincerity of the pursuit of inner goals that mattered; this applied equally to individuals and groups—states, nations, movements. This

11250-470: The memory of an erstwhile historic state lost to the world, while his country remained carved up between three European powers which afforded its Polish natives no prospect of political self-determination . His works, disseminated through thousands of reproductions, have become standard illustrations of the many key events in Polish history . His 1860 illustrated album, Ubiory w Polsce (Costume in Poland),

11375-526: The mid-century the undoubtedly Romantic novels of the Yorkshire -based Brontë family appeared, most notably Charlotte 's Jane Eyre and Emily 's Wuthering Heights , both published in 1847, which also introduced more Gothic themes. While these two novels were written and published after the Romantic period is said to have ended, their novels were heavily influenced by Romantic literature they had read as children. Byron, Keats, and Shelley all wrote for

11500-461: The military service of his brothers influenced his artistic themes. After studying art in Munich and Vienna, he returned to Kraków and set up a studio. He gradually gained recognition, selling key paintings that settled his debts and created some of his most famous works, including Stańczyk and Skarga's Sermon . Matejko's art played a key role in promoting Polish history and national identity at

11625-607: The movement. Though his novels celebrated Scottish identity and history, Scott was politically a firm Unionist, but admitted to Jacobite sympathies. Several Romantics spent much time abroad, and a famous stay on Lake Geneva with Byron and Shelley in 1816 produced the hugely influential novel Frankenstein by Shelley's wife-to-be Mary Shelley and the novella The Vampyre by Byron's doctor John William Polidori . The lyrics of Robert Burns in Scotland, and Thomas Moore from Ireland, reflected in different ways their countries and

11750-436: The much older William Blake , followed later by the isolated figure of John Clare ; also such novelists as Walter Scott from Scotland and Mary Shelley , and the essayists William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb . The publication in 1798 of Lyrical Ballads , with many of the finest poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge, is often held to mark the start of the movement. The majority of the poems were by Wordsworth, and many dealt with

11875-820: The nation fighting for its independence. The most notable poet so recognized was Adam Mickiewicz . His famous verse epic Pan Tadeusz describes his love for the partitioned homeland and people of his native country: "O Lithuania , my country, thou Art like good health; I never knew till now How precious, till I lost thee. Now I see Thy beauty whole, because I yearn for thee." (— Opening stanza of Pan Tadeusz , Kenneth R. Mackenzie translation) Other notable Polish Romantic writers active abroad included Juliusz Słowacki , Zygmunt Krasiński and Cyprian Kamil Norwid . A number of Romantics remained active in divided and occupied Poland, including Józef Ignacy Kraszewski , Wincenty Pol , Władysław Syrokomla , and Narcyza Żmichowska . One of Polish Romanticism's unique qualities

12000-557: The nature and purpose of art, above all the pre-eminent importance of originality, remained important for later generations, and often underlie modern views, despite opposition from theorists. In literature, Romanticism found recurrent themes in the evocation or criticism of the past, the cult of " sensibility " with its emphasis on women and children, the isolation of the artist or narrator, and respect for nature. Furthermore, several romantic authors, such as Edgar Allan Poe , Charles Maturin and Nathaniel Hawthorne , based their writings on

12125-414: The novel and drama, painting, and even music, through Verismo opera. This movement was led by France, with Balzac and Flaubert in literature and Courbet in painting; Stendhal and Goya were important precursors of Realism in their respective media. However, Romantic styles, now often representing the established and safe style against which Realists rebelled, continued to flourish in many fields for

12250-453: The other was forced into exile. Matejko attended St. Anne's High School , but he dropped out in 1851 because of poor grades. Matejko showed an early artistic talent, but had great difficulty with other academic subjects. He never fully mastered a foreign language. Despite that, and because of his exceptional skill, at the age of fourteen he entered the School of Fine Arts in Kraków , where he

12375-499: The past became one of the defining qualities of the literature of Polish Romantic period, differentiating it from that of other countries who did not suffer the loss of statehood as was the case with Poland. Romantic ideas informed not only literature but also painting and music . Polish Romantic painting is exemplified in the work of Artur Grottger , Henryk Rodakowski , or the equestrian master artist Piotr Michałowski (now at Sukiennice ), and Jan Nepomucen Głowacki considered

12500-422: The peak Romantic period, other than Walter Scott, was Jane Austen , whose essentially conservative world-view had little in common with her Romantic contemporaries, retaining a strong belief in decorum and social rules, though critics such as Claudia L. Johnson have detected tremors under the surface of many works, such as Northanger Abbey (1817), Mansfield Park (1814) and Persuasion (1817). But around

12625-417: The poet then "recollect[s] in tranquility", enabling the poet to find a suitably unique form for representing such feelings. The Romantics never doubted that emotionally motivated art would find suitable, harmonious modes for expressing its vital content—if, that is, the artist steered clear of moribund conventions and distracting precedents. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others thought there were natural laws

12750-451: The reader to identify the protagonists with the poets themselves." This quality in Romantic literature, in turn, influenced the approach and reception of works in other media; it has seeped into everything from critical evaluations of individual style in painting, fashion, and music, to the auteur movement in modern filmmaking. The group of words with the root "Roman" in the various European languages, such as "romance" and "Romanesque", has

12875-399: The relationship between people and Nature. Romantics generally believed a close connection with Nature was beneficial for human beings, especially for individuals who broke off from society in order to encounter the natural world by themselves. Romantic literature was frequently written in a distinctive, personal "voice". As critic M. H. Abrams has observed, "much of romantic poetry invited

13000-484: The rest of the century and beyond. In music such works from after about 1850 are referred to by some writers as "Late Romantic" and by others as "Neoromantic" or "Postromantic", but other fields do not usually use these terms; in English literature and painting the convenient term "Victorian" avoids having to characterise the period further. In northern Europe, the Early Romantic visionary optimism and belief that

13125-528: The stage, but with little success in England, with Shelley's The Cenci perhaps the best work produced, though that was not played in a public theatre in England until a century after his death. Byron's plays, along with dramatizations of his poems and Scott's novels, were much more popular on the Continent, and especially in France, and through these versions several were turned into operas, many still performed today. If contemporary poets had little success on

13250-563: The stage, the period was a legendary one for performances of Shakespeare , and went some way to restoring his original texts and removing the Augustan "improvements" to them. The greatest actor of the period, Edmund Kean , restored the tragic ending to King Lear ; Coleridge said that "Seeing him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning." Although after union with England in 1707 Scotland increasingly adopted English language and wider cultural norms, its literature developed

13375-424: The themes of the Gothic novel in verse. These featured different variations of the " Byronic hero ", and his own life contributed a further version. Scott meanwhile was effectively inventing the historical novel , beginning in 1814 with Waverley , set in the 1745 Jacobite rising , which was a highly profitable success, followed by over 20 further Waverley Novels over the next 17 years, with settings going back to

13500-543: The time of his death.". Wilhelm von Kaulbach and his "historical symbolism" style had a profound influence on Matejko. This aimed not so much at an exact representation of past events, but gave the artist freedom to interpret and opened the possibility to blend historical data within a chosen perspective. Matejko's technique in the Neoclassical genre has been praised for its "luminosity, detail and imagination". He succeeded in propagating Polish history, and fostering

13625-459: The values of their contemporary industrial society, which they considered alienating for its economic materialism and environmental degradation . The movement's illustration of the Middle Ages was a central theme in debates, with allegations that Romanticist portrayals often overlooked the downsides of medieval life. The consensus is that Romanticism peaked from 1800 until 1850. However,

13750-696: The viewer with a patriotic message. Stańczyk focuses on the court jester, portrayed as a symbol of his country's conscience, sitting in a chair, against the background of a party - a lonely figure reflecting on war, ignored by the joyful crowd. His paintings are on display in numerous Polish museums, including: the National Museum in Warsaw , National Museum in Kraków , National Museum in Poznań and National Museum in Wrocław . The National Museum, Kraków has

13875-422: The words of one of their number, Alfred de Vigny , been "conceived between battles, attended school to the rolling of drums". According to Jacques Barzun , there were three generations of Romantic artists. The first emerged in the 1790s and 1800s, the second in the 1820s, and the third later in the century. The more precise characterization and specific definition of Romanticism has been the subject of debate in

14000-427: The world was in the process of great change and improvement had largely vanished, and some art became more conventionally political and polemical as its creators engaged polemically with the world as it was. Elsewhere, including in very different ways the United States and Russia, feelings that great change was underway or just about to come were still possible. Displays of intense emotion in art remained prominent, as did

14125-533: Was a Polish painter, a leading 19th-century exponent of history painting , known for depicting nodal events from Polish history. His works include large scale oil paintings such as Stańczyk (1862), Rejtan (1866), Union of Lublin (1869), Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God (1873), or Battle of Grunwald (1878). He was the author of numerous portraits, a gallery of Polish monarchs in book form, and murals in St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków . He

14250-447: Was a contemporary of Artur Grottger from 1852 to 1858. His teachers included Wojciech Korneli Stattler and Władysław Łuszczkiewicz . He opted for historical painting as his specialism, and finished his first major work, The Shuyski Tsars before Zygmunt III ( Carowie Szujscy przed Zygmuntem III ), in 1853 (he would return to this theme a year before his death, in 1892. During this time, he began exhibiting historical paintings at

14375-555: Was a multitude of small separate states, and Goethe's works would have a seminal influence in developing a unifying sense of nationalism . Another philosophic influence came from the German idealism of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schelling , making Jena (where Fichte lived, as well as Schelling, Hegel , Schiller and the brothers Schlegel ) a centre for early German Romanticism (see Jena Romanticism ). Important writers were Ludwig Tieck , Novalis , Heinrich von Kleist and Friedrich Hölderlin . Heidelberg later became

14500-526: Was acquired by the Jagiellonian University . From the 1870s onwards he was aided by a secretary, Marian Gorzkowski, who became his personal assistant, his closest friend, a model for a number of his paintings, and the author of a memoir about Matejko. In 1872, during an exhibition in Prague he was offered the directorship of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts , quickly followed by a similar offer from

14625-460: Was also popularised in France by figures that included Napoleon . Eventually it became clear that the poems were not direct translations from Scottish Gaelic , but flowery adaptations made to suit the aesthetic expectations of his audience. Robert Burns (1759–96) and Walter Scott (1771–1832) were highly influenced by the Ossian cycle. Burns, an Ayrshire poet and lyricist, is widely regarded as

14750-437: Was also the location of two of the most important literary magazines of the era, The Edinburgh Review (founded in 1802) and Blackwood's Magazine (founded in 1817), which had a major impact on the development of British literature and drama in the era of Romanticism. Ian Duncan and Alex Benchimol suggest that publications like the novels of Scott and these magazines were part of a highly dynamic Scottish Romanticism that by

14875-584: Was also very engaged in efforts to protect and reconstruct historical monuments in Kraków. In 1886, he finished a painting relating to French rather than Polish history, The Virgin of Orléans , a portrayal of Joan of Arc . In 1887 Matejko received an honorary doctorate from the Jagiellonian University , and recognition from the Austrian Society, Litteris et Artibus . In 1888 he completed The Battle of Racławice ( Bitwa pod Racławicami ). In 1888-1899, to justify his new academic title, he published

15000-507: Was among the notable people to receive an unsolicited letter from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche , as the latter tipped, in January 1889, into his psychotic breakdown while in Turin . Matejko was born on 24 June 1838, in the Free City of Kraków . His father, Franciszek Ksawery Matejko ( Czech : František Xaver Matějka ) (born 1789 or 13 January 1793, died 26 October 1860),

15125-455: Was darker in its motifs and has gothic elements. The significance to Romanticism of childhood innocence, the importance of imagination, and racial theories all combined to give an unprecedented importance to folk literature , non-classical mythology and children's literature , above all in Germany. Brentano and von Arnim were significant literary figures who together published Des Knaben Wunderhorn ("The Boy's Magic Horn" or cornucopia ),

15250-474: Was earlier literature that they had discovered or compiled was, in fact, entirely their own work. The Gothic novel , beginning with Horace Walpole 's The Castle of Otranto (1764), was an important precursor of one strain of Romanticism, with a delight in horror and threat, and exotic picturesque settings, matched in Walpole's case by his role in the early revival of Gothic architecture . Tristram Shandy ,

15375-479: Was elected member of the Kraków Scientific Society ( Towarzystwo Naukowe Krakowskie ) in recognition for his contributions to depicting great national historical themes. On 21 November he married Teodora Giebułtowska , with whom he went on to have five children: Beata, Helena , Tadeusz, Jerzy and Regina. His daughter, Helena, also an artist, later helped World War I victims and was awarded

15500-566: Was its relation to and inspiration from Polish history from before the invasion. Polish Romanticism revived the old " Sarmatic " traditions of Polish nobility, the szlachta . Old traditions and customs were portrayed favourably in the Polish messianic movement and in the leading works of virtually all Polish national poets, most notably in Pan Tadeusz , but also in the epic works of prose writers including Henryk Sienkiewicz 's Trylogia . This close connection between Polish Romanticism and

15625-621: Was the Union of Lublin ( Unia Lubelska ), created during 1867–1869. Acclaimed in Paris, it won Matejko the Cross of the Légion d'honneur . and was purchased by the Sejm of Galicia . It was followed by Stefan Batory at Pskov ( Stefan Batory pod Pskowem ), finished in 1871. In 1872, he visited Istanbul and upon his return to Kraków finished The Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God ( Astronom Kopernik, czyli rozmowa z Bogiem ), which

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