Romanticism

By the early 1800s, “Romanticism” was already the name for a new current in art and literature. Its painters and writers were drawn to the workings of the mind, to personal feeling, and to the natural world, and it marked a complex shift away from the long-dominant classical tradition. Tate puts its peak at about 1780–1830, with an influence that lasted much longer; what set it apart was a new emotionalism set against the classical ideal of restraint. Getty's Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) describes it as a reaction against the formality of Neoclassicism: works vary in style but tend to be painterly and dynamic, and to care more for colour than for line. In Britain, Constable and Turner found fresh ways of responding to nature, while William Blake explored where humans stand in the cosmos and how they relate to God. By the middle of the century, Realism had grown up as a reaction to the Romantic outlook.

Look for the place in the picture where the feeling is strongest. Is it carried by a face or a gesture, by the weather and sky, or by the colour itself?

• Neoclassicism 新古典主義→Romanticism is read as a response to Neoclassical formality.
• Realism (19th century) 写実主義（19世紀）→Realism arose as a reaction to the Romantic outlook.