Romanticism

            
             The art movement that rejected the order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality was known as Romaticism. Art had been a representation of the current thoughts and belief of the time and truly showed the way people thought and felt about their surrounding world. Many art focused on reason and of reality; others focused on the obscurity of society and the beauty of it. Romanticism was an art that wanted to move away from the Neoclassicism that dominated during the Enlightenment and created a more emotional artform that would soon dominat the early half of the nineteenth century.
             From the late eigthteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, Romanticism became the major art movement in Europe. Most of the style was centralized in France but it spread throughout Europe. The hieghtened sense of individualism that was brought by Napoleon and the early Industrial Revolution allowed the art to flourish with the new way of thinking in the early nineteenth century. Napoleon's conquest for a united Europe fueled the national pride of the people which fueled the desire for national feeling of individualism. Feelings began to overtake the people's reasons and the the Neoclassicism belief of peace and unity was faded out for new found force. Feeling overwhelmed the artist who threw away the classical form in favored of the more subjective side of human experience. Feelings for the first time in history became the object and subject of art.
             There were many different characteristic of Romaniticism that specialized the movement and gave it its own category of artform. Romanticism was a revolt against the Enlightenment and against eighteenth century rationalism and physical materialism in general. It was an appreciation for nature and its beauty, the overwhelming feeling of emotion overtaking reason and of the senses over the intellect. The form emphasized that everyone is not perfect and had a tragic hero who had a passionate inner struggle.