Friday, December 2 Introduction to Romanticism / sample analysis / literary parallels

Working during the height of the Enlightenment, the so-called “Age of Reason,” the Swiss-English painter Henry Fuseli (born Johann Heinrich Füssli)  chose to depict darker, irrational forces in his famous painting The Nightmare. In Fuseli’s startling composition, a woman bathed in white light stretches across a bed, her arms, neck, and head hanging off the end of the mattress. An apelike figure crouches on her chest while a horse with glowing eyes and flared nostrils emerges from the shadowy background. The painting shocked, titillated, and frightened exhibition visitors and critics when it was first displayed. The scene is an invented one, a product of Fuseli’s imagination.

 The painting has yielded many interpretations and is seen as prefiguring late nineteenth-century psychoanalytic theories regarding dreams and the unconscious (Sigmund Freud allegedly kept a reproduction of the painting on the wall of his apartment in Vienna). Although it is tempting to understand the painting’s title as a punning reference to the horse, the word “nightmare” does not refer to horses. Rather, in the now obsolete definition of the term, a mare is an evil spirit that tortures humans while they sleep.

Learning Targets: I can propel a conversation by posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence.

           I can draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

In class: Introduction to Romanticism / back ground information and artistic practice. (class handout / copy below); you are responsible for this material, if you are absent.

Coming up: vocabulary quiz on Friday, December 9. 
                    Passed out on Thursday, November 30; copy of words at the end of the blog.

Background information on Romanticism as opposed to the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason.

Plato described humans as a careful balance of reason, passions and appetites, with reason as the guide.

The Age of Reason or the Enlightenment elevated reason, but perhaps suppressed passions too much. For some, the emphasis on reason had gotten out of balance with the rest of human nature. 

Romanticism (also the Romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, 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.

“The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,”

With this print, Goya is revealed as a transitional figure between the end of the Enlightenment and the emergence of Romanticism.n the image, an artist, asleep at his drawing table, is besieged by creatures associated in Spanish folk tradition with mystery and evil. The title of the print, emblazoned on the front of the desk, is often read as a proclamation of Goya’s adherence to the values of the Enlightenment—without Reason, evil and corruption prevail.

However, Goya wrote a caption for the print that complicates its message, “Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders.”

 For Goya, art is the child of reason in combination with imagination.


Qualities of Romanticism

Love of Nature

Idealization of Rural Living
Faith in Common People
Emphasis on Freedom and Individualism
Spontaneity, intuition, feeling, imagination, wonder
Passionate individual religiosity
Life after death
Organic view of the World

 The Romantics were a group of writers, artists, and thinkers who rebelled against the rational thinking of the Enlightenment by championing intense emotion and feeling as the truest form of aesthetic experience. 

Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare

What qualities of Romanticism do you see in this image?

Look at the list on the graphic organizer and discuss with a neighbor for two minutes.

Working during the height of the Enlightenment, the so-called “Age of Reason,” the Swiss-English painter Henry Fuseli (born Johann Heinrich Füssli)  chose to depict darker, irrational forces in his famous painting The Nightmare. In Fuseli’s startling composition, a woman bathed in white light stretches across a bed, her arms, neck, and head hanging off the end of the mattress. An apelike figure crouches on her chest while a horse with glowing eyes and flared nostrils emerges from the shadowy background. The painting shocked, titillated, and frightened exhibition visitors and critics when it was first displayed. The scene is an invented one, a product of Fuseli’s imagination.

 The painting has yielded many interpretations and is seen as prefiguring late nineteenth-century psychoanalytic theories regarding dreams and the unconscious (Sigmund Freud allegedly kept a reproduction of the painting on the wall of his apartment in Vienna). Although it is tempting to understand the painting’s title as a punning reference to the horse, the word “nightmare” does not refer to horses. Rather, in the now obsolete definition of the term, a mare is an evil spirit that tortures humans while they sleep.
Qualities of Romanticism

Love of Nature
Idealization of Rural Living
Faith in Common People
Emphasis on Freedom and Individualism
Spontaneity, intuition, feeling, imagination, wonder
Passionate individual religiosity
Life after death
Organic view of the World
Using your graphic organizer, respond to each of the following as to what aspects of Romanticism are reflected in the painting. There is a copy below for anyone who is absent.
1.

Saturn Devouring His Children by Francisco Goya

2.

Wivenhoe Park by John Constable

3)

The Wanderer by Casper Friedrich

4)                      Liberty   by Eugene Delacroix

5)  Fur Traders  by Caleb Bingham

              6. Frightened by a Lion Stubbs 

Name___________________________________

Elements of Romanticism: the eye reveals

Qualities of Romanticism

Love of Nature

Idealization of Rural Living

Faith in Common People

Emphasis on Freedom and Individualism

Spontaneity, intuition, feeling, imagination, wonder

Passionate individual religiosity

Life after death

Organic view of the World

Beside each of the following titles, write one observation concerning a character, setting, plot, tone. Next, look at the accompanying handout, and write one quality of Romanticism that you note is represented by the image.

Painting	Literary Element Observation	Romantic quality
1.    Saturn Devouring His Children- Francisco Goya
2.    Wivenhoe Park by John Constable
The Wanderer by Caspar Friedrich
Liberty   by Eugene Delacroix
Fur Traders on the Missouri John Caleb Bingham

Frightened by a Lion  George Stubbs

Vocabulary 1 “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

Quiz on December 9

1. kin (noun) - one’s family and relations

2. spectre-bark (noun) - ghost ship

3. agape (adj) - agog, wide open, especially with surprise or wonder

4. kirk (noun) - church (term most often used in Scotland)

5. aver (verb) - to state or assert to be the case                             

6. furrow (noun) - long narrow trench made in the ground or a rut or groove

7. shroud (noun) - length of cloth to wrap a dead person; a thing that envelops

8. gossamer (noun) - a fine, filmy substance consisting of cobwebs, something light, delicate                                            

9. tyrannous (adj) - unjustly severe

10. prow (noun) - the portion of a ship’s bow above water