Romanticism :-
Romanticism was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature—all components of modernity. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, the social sciences, and the natural sciences It had a significant and complex effect on politics, with romantic thinkers influencing liberalism, radicalism, conservatism and nationalism.
In the visual arts romanticism is used to refer loosely to a trend that appears at any time, and specifically to the art of the early 19th century. Nineteenth-century romanticism was characterized by the avoidance of classical forms and rules, emphasis on the emotional and spiritual, representation of the unattainable ideal, nostalgia for the grace of past ages, and a predilection for unusual themes.
Romantic artists developed exact techniques in order to produce specific associations in the mind of the viewer. To convey verbal concepts they would, for example, endow inanimate objects with human values. The result was often sentimental or absurd. In the case of Delacroix, however, his painterly style and color sense exalted the romantic attitude in a singularly effective fashion.
The nature of Romanticism may be approached from the primary importance of the free expression of the feelings of the artist. For William Wordsworth, poetry should begin as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings", which the poet then "recollect in tranquility", evoking a new but corresponding emotion the poet can then mold into art.
The period typically called Romantic varies greatly between different countries and different artistic media or areas of thought.
In England landscape gardening was used to express the romantic aesthetic by means of deliberate imitation of the picturesque in nature. In architecture Wyatt 's preposterous, mock medieval Fonthill Abbey displayed the romantic building style in extreme form. The host of minor artists of the romantic tradition included the French Géricault , the Swiss-English Henry Fuseli , the Swiss Arnold Böcklin , the English Pre-Raphaelites , the German Nazarenes , and the American artists of the Hudson River school .