ROMANTICISM

Shared by Ana Torrecilla: 

The Romanticism is an artistic and literary movement or philosophy, which had been growing since the French Revolution, especially during the industrial revolution in Western Europe, and which seemed to combine perfectly with the growth of nationalist sentiment. 19th Romanticism was expressed through music, art and literature.

Wanderer above the sea of fog, by Caspar David Friedrich

The basic ideas of Romanticism are:

 The cult of the individual, like Alexander the Great or Charlemagne.

 A reaction against the Enlightenment. Sentiment, strong emotions (horror, trepidation….), intuition, imagination and aesthetics were more important than scientific rationalism.

 Reaction of “false” social convections like the aristocracy.

 Folk traditions, ancient culture and vernacular forms of language.

 Ethnicity: an idea based on perceived common origins, in which people share a specific ancestry and culture that mark them as different from other.

Liberty Leading the People byEugène Delacroix

A Romantic heroine: in The Lady of Shalott(1888) John William Waterhouse's realistic technique depicts a neo-medieval subject drawn from Arthurian Romance.

THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSE 

by Theodore Gericault (1820)

Theodore Gericault's "Raft of the Medusa" (1820), was a social commentary on a current event, unprecedented at the time. 

You do not need special knowledge concerning the shipwreck that the painting depicts, to appreciate it, but allows the appreciation of Gericault's political intentions in the piece.

FINAL TASK:

1. You have to elaborate, send by moodle (for your teacher) and print a document to be displayed where you include:

-The picture of the “Raft of the Medusa” with a caption with the title and author.

-Exercise 1 (Romantic characteristics of the picture). You may use the other document in .pdf with the introduction about Romanticism).

-Exercise 2 (Description of the picture, you may use the verbs underneath and the story about the shipwreck).

-Exercise 4: you have to read the moral dilemma and decide what you would do in that case.

2. Complete exercise 3 in your notebook. It will be checked in class.

…And do not forget to write your name and class in your document.

EXERCISES:

1. Describe the picture using the aforementioned characteristics (basic ideas of Romanticism): “The characteristics of Romanticism in this picture are….”

2. Describe the action in this painting.

3. Read the following text. Then complete the sentences below:

The people on the raft were going to_________________________

The shipwreck took place _____________________________________

Only ____________ people survived after a period of _____________

The painting shows __________________________________________

The French painter Theodore Gericault (1791-1824) is most famous for his painting of the Raft of the Medusa, a painting that documents the drama of shipwreck. In July 1816, after the Bourbon Restoration, La Méduse was shipwrecked off the coast of west Africa in 1816. According to the Paris peace treaty of 1814, England returned the colony of Senegal to France. The French Navy equipped the frigate La Méduse and three more ships, and in 1816 they left to regain control of the colony. La Méduse carried 395 people, civilian and military. For some reason La Méduse left its nearest accompanying ship, L'Echo, trying to follow a sneak route closer to the coast. Of course she navigated too close to the African coast, and on July 2nd she struck a sand bank off Mauretania. The ship was stuck, L'Echo was out of sight and the two other ships were far behind. The ship had to be abandoned. The three life boats could only take about 250 people, so a raft was constructed for those remaining, led by the ship's carpenter, one of the few survivors of the shipwreck, whom Géricault was to meet in Paris. 17 people decide to stay on the ship, while the rest got into the boats and the Raft. One hundred and fifty people were crammed onto a makeshift raft. Twelve days later the raft was found with only fifteen survivors. The horror of starvation, dehydration, cannibalism, madness and suicide on board shocked the French populace. Speaking to survivors, as well as having body parts from morgues brought to his studio, Gericault intensely studied human form, and the drama of the incident, to bring the ordeal to life. The painting was both a highly dramatic reconstruction of a real event as well as a political statement on the incompetence of government policy at the time.

4. Problem situation: Moral dilemmas

“The raft is about to sink. There are still 7 people on it: a 10-year-old boy; a famous and most-loved actress and singer, a carpenter who has four children, a Jewish scientist, who was about to discover the cure for cancer, a pregnant woman, a doctor who was going to make a life or death operation and a black missioner who directs an NGO in Africa.

Only by throwing two people overboard, the rest of people will have an opportunity to survive.”

What would you do? Who would you throw overboard? Why? Justify your answer.

If you want to download these activities on pdf format you can clik below:

-Part 1

-Part 2