5 the Visual Arts and Music
5 The visual arts and music
Stephen C. Behrendt
We usually associate Romantic visual art and music with a period extendin,q :- mid- to later eighteenth century until the middle and (for music) later ninetet:':
tury-some wouid say even beyond that. One of Romantic art's distinctive :..,. il the artist's desire to express the ideal in terms of the real. Like some Lr: Wordsworth's and Charlotte Smith's poems, it is firmly grounded in actr-i,, dependent for its force upon precise details about leal things. Fundamental r:,- principles are revealed through their appearances within'everyday life'. I-ike . t1-re Romantic artist renders the familiar unique by presenting it in an unac. -- u'av to help the vieu,er to 'see' what has been there all along, hidden in 1',,, u-ithln the ordinary external universe. This is especially ttue r,r'hen it comes to nature. Romanticism transformed t:'.
universe from a mere generic backdrop to human activity to a centraL :. .l Romantic art lalgely rejected the neoclassical preference for generallzat. : depicting human activity and the natural world. William Blake, for example, rlrrll r n 'To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction oi \:.
Blake, what is most individual and idiosyncratic is what is most valuable to trl: &ii,iLLlii is the physical kernel that holds within it the universal value or truth that i: ,, r'$ni
.' l$nn only via the particuiar detail, accurately and minutely rendered. Romantir 11,, are therefore often fil1ed with carefully executed details, whether their subier.' iii*r. Like Romantic art ofte ' ;l:rilffilr jr nature, human activity, or both. Romantic literature, ,, r that nature is both consoling and restorative: seen (and enjoyed) correctlr', rr--
vides the catalyst for altering the individual consciousness, most often for . Thus Romantic visual art often depicts people-especially ordinary people-- tiiijii pleasant, salutary activities within natural settings, which suggests to vietve:, 'tr might improve their own situations at minimal expense (financial or ps\.. ,,t through the medium of nature. At the same time, howevet, visual art cott-.
ingly to recognize that nature is both'Destroyer and Preservet', as Percy Sh. , the West Wind: the stormy scenes of Constable and Turner, the cataclysr-t-t.-
John Martin, and the starkness of some of Caspar David Friedrich's work: . Tennyson's nature, 'red in tooth and claw'. At other times, artists simply c;. to the sheer immensity of nature, often by having their human figures r'l'hc by the natural setting, as in Friedrich's Lantlscape with Ooks and Hunter (781',
tih lW,' ffili ffi The visual arts and music I 63
Romantic art is also concerned with heroism, which European art and culture were .ntirely redefining during this period. The revolutions in America and France had ::gun to reduce the daunting distance between the ordinary citizen's situation and .:at of the traditional hero or heroine. Like those revolutions, which sought to define ,. sovereignty of 'the people'-and thereby of the individual-in defiance of inherited :ia1, political, and economic hierarchies, a revolution in Romantic art dignified the :. of individual whom the fine arts had historically either treated as a butt of humour ,, erlooked altogether. Now George Crabbe wrote about common villagers like Peter ' ::tes, william wordsworth wrote poems featuring beggars and retarded children, followers. To - 1f arv Robinson wrote about London street people and military camp ,e such subjects, and then to tleat them seriously and with dignity, as Romantic - : began to do, was to declare art far more truly'open' and representative of the . sality of human experience than had previously been the case. Romantic art -. just glittering, privileged few but also - - :rr demand that attention be paid not to the il ' : ..'fSt majority of humankind, ln each of whom resided material appropriate for of prominent _ : _-. ,tr comedy of the highest sort. Thls is not to say that depictions period; rures and events faded from view (or prominence) during the Romantic ,:r , however, that by the end of that era it was no longer remarkable to find I . :.,'ith complete seriousness subjects like Goya's victims of war, G6ricault',s ':. Soldiers and asylum inmates, and Constable,s rustic farmers. .i1, Romanticism emphasized individuality. Every individual is unique, r)m argues, and possesses by nature an infinite capacity for experience' -,it and literature created a cult of individualism by linking the individual :-;al, mythological, and symbolic preculsors and prototypes while cultivating .-.:.pendence of mind. Hence Romantic writers remind their contemporaries .:rrn to think for themselves, to bypass or ignore the 'middle-men' (profes- --..,'ers and cultural critics), and in the process to know themselves. The .: -st relishes those characteristics that distinguish the individual from the . r: results in our accepting, like Lord Byron (and like his immensely popu- t- ,il appear in Romantic visual art), that none of us is - i,.;' - ,):-\ rvho frequently contradictory l|r,11,, -.,-. that each of us is compounded of mixed and frequently to and r1l11t,] what we aspire lt u t:S, and idiosyncracies that leave us torn between "- :, :": preoccupied ,lrfi|lllli . . -,',ra11y achieve. Romantic art is therefore more than usually - ;ili :- course with failure' rstiiltlltllu ' -.iling with trial, with testing, with triumph, and of the emo- ]i :. : upol1 the personal reflects Romantic art's firm grounding in -! .lr ;11lil5il11 . -':ctivity. Jean-Jacques RouSseau'S ideas concerning human Subjectivity : rrse, during the later eighteenth century, of sentimentalism, which -- -"i' :: .rti and intuition rather than reason and empirical knowledge: what il' ::- :ortant than what one feels about what happens. Romantic visual art ,itr and only liltiti - .:= :heir audiences first through the senses and the emotions r llllll . -::] the analytlcal intellect. In music, the crisp intellectuality of Bach,s ,':-:sonatasgiveswaytotheSheelenergyofBeethoven,sFifth 64 I Romantic orientations
Symphony or the emotional extremes of Berlioz's Requiem. Likewise, Romantic pair-:- ings typically demand active emoti onal engagementt rather than passive spectatorsh-: as happens with John Martin's massive apocalyptic canvasses or J. M. w. Turne: , swirling, misty scenes.
British art and Romanticism
British Romantic art reflects most of these characteristics (see Oxford Companion t- :w Romantic Age, pp.250-60). It is, however, less immediately concerned than Frenci !r.t with the events of the revolution and the Napoleonic era, although later in the pt:r:ou artists like Sir David wilkie, the most important genre painter in the first part c,i --re century, painted many historical subjects, including scenes from contemp.:.il:q history. Landscapes and seascapes are, on the other hand, comparatively more pro:rlio* ent. John Constable andJ. M. W. Turner (see below) were only the most promine:,: un many landscape artists. William Delamott and James Ward painted landscapes :::Ilur enced by precursors like Rubens, while the paintings of Clarkson Stanfield and Fr-L:mr Danby evoke the many moods inspired by nature and the sea. The sea was Ln: i& favourite subject of Richard Parkes Bonington, whose delicate and brilliantly coi,-,-mdi works were influenced by French Romanticism, and of John Sell Cotman, who 11 :,*${rdi orimarilv in watercolours. The work of William Blake (see below) and followers like Samuel Palmer is r-isi:: and spiritual. Palmer's early work reflects his acquaintance with the Bible, \{-,'r Bunyan, Christian mysticism, and the visual style of Blake and John Linnell, t,-: whom he knew. His early works are intense and highly spiritualized pastorai scapes. Like the Germans caspar David Friedrich and otto Runge, palmer sough;:, art to explore the sacred symbolism of natural phenomena. Paintings like Conlir:_i Evening church (1830) seem to merge human figures and rustic architecture t::: landscape itself in a timeless vision of a rural paradise. The Swiss immigrant Henry Fuseli gained fame for his dark, wild, and se::s treatments of mythic and literary subjects, especially from Shakespeare and \{ Best known now for his several versions of The Nightmare (1781-1820), Fur:_ expert at portraying psychological intensity and extreme behaviours, including : and masochism. John Martin was famous for large paintings of cataclysmic : involving broad panoramas, extraordinary architecture, and great numbers :,: figures dwarfed by the immensity of the other details. Best known in his life fc: : ings like Belshqzzor's Feest (1821) andrhe plqins of Heaven (1851-3), Martin alsc ; book illustrations for literary works like Milton's Poradise losf. Less success:-rL William Etty, whose mythological and historical subjects, though technicall.r- : (especially with the nude human body), Iacked vitality and authenticity of e-r The most prominent portrait painter was the brilliant Sir Thomas Lawrence. L; The visual arts and music 65
--:'r:e of the royal family, whose portraits he painted and whose patronage he r.. Pflnce Regent (later George IV) commissioned him in 1g15 to execute ::re rulers and statesmen involved in the struggle against Napoleon. Richar
whether to literary, scientific, travel, or religious texts, contributed to both an increas- of ingly sophisticated public 'eye' (or visual literacy) and a growing public awaleness (and susceptibility to) the particular appeal of visual art'
John Constable and the characterization of nature
pp. a6a-5) is often con- John constable (see oxford companion to the Romantic Age, Art a-s sidered the premier English landscape artist. He joined the Royal Academy of a student i.it 1799 and became a full academician in 1829. Throughout his career. constable drew upon the scenery of his native Suffolk for the works on which hi: reputation now rests. Large paintings like The white Horse (7879) and The Hay l\ittt (1821) gave constable the physical space to demonstrate his remarkable skill nit: highly particularized detail; not only are vegetation and cloud formations rendertc like the hay wagon tw with great care/ so too ale even the most minor details of objects paintings do ncro the brick and stucco work on the house. And yet, paradoxicallY, these of experienc replicate actual places so much as they attempt to capture the immediacy manner of willin'm associated with particular times, places, and moods, much in the Ther wordsworth,s poems, to which they are sometimes regarded as visual analogues' along with hih are the ,o,, of paintings for which Constable is most remembered, But n images of Salisbury Cathedral, which he painted from many perspectives' was commlss these nor the more conventional portraits and religious subiects he not u to paint secured him either wealth or popularity during his lifetime; it was the first biography (by C. R. Leslie, published in 1843) that his Work began to , widespread and serious attention. constable seems to have coined the expression 'natural painture" by which meant an approach to landscape painting that rejected academic conventiorl{ r'r-el sought instead an entirely pure representation of nature. Such representation all n'ffi Constable, grounded in careful and minute observation; convinced that (in'i phenomena are unique and individual, he made innumerable sketches phent esoeciallv oil sketches) 'on location" in the open air, in order to captule like changing cloud formations with absolute fidelity. The range of subject constable's maior landscape paintings is surprisingly narrow; they depict rural (with mills and other features of the Stour valley), changeable summel weaths" time hours, and an emphasis upon the variety and vitality of the natural world- in constable,s paintings nature becomes a principal character in what action the we are expected to study and reflect upon the carefully delineated details of 'world m at least as much aS we ale the activities of the few humans present remarkable settings. Nature,s 'stage presence' is heightened by constable's particularitr C* rendering the effects of light upon colours' The immediacy and cc brought to his depictions of nature form an important breakwith academic 68 | Romantic orientations
and, although Constable's art took a very different direction from that of his con- temporary, J. M. W. Turner, it served no less an important function in laying the groundwork for Impressionism and modernism.
William Blake's interdisciplinary art
The work of William Blake (see Oxford Companion to the Romqntic Age, pp. 427-8) is extraordinary in its variety and intensity, its technical range and its intellectual and psychological penetration. Known in his time principally as a somewhat old-fashionei but technically excellent engraver and an eccentric painter, Blake was an enormouslv prolific visual artist and poet. A champion of historical and spiritual art, Blake brok. from the Royal Academy in protest of both the Academy's exclusion of engravers anc its betrayal of artists like James Barry in what he perceived to be its deferral to tht retrogressive tastes and preferences of its wealthy patrons. Blake's own style involr-e: an abstract Gothic linearity that typically produced elongated human figures deplove' upon a relatively flat plane. The bulk of his work is done in watercolouq which ht handles with great skill to produce delicate, Iuminous figures. Unfortunatell- watercolours are notoriously susceptible to the effects of light, and many of Blake : pictures are now sadly faded, though they remain compelling nevertheless. Although Blake championed exactitude and the individual, he regarded what h" called 'Minute Particulars' as visionary gateways to Eternity. Spiritual vision was mc:. important to him than material observation, which bound the senses to the analr-r-- ally recorded natural world rather than freeing them to unlock the eternal wor-: Blake regarded the artist as a prophet whose duty it was to open the eyes of a reca-;-- trant and error-bound people to Truth and to a redemption that was at once spirit1::* intellectual, and socio-political. Blake's principal subiects are drawn from the B::t and Milton, both of which he interpreted with great insight, often 'cotrecting' w:ff he perceived to be errors in the originals or in the public's understanding of th.:" Indeed, Blake conceived of many of his projects as illustrations/ even when ther' ;rl not always result in conventional engravings. In addition to Milton and the Bible :* created large series of illustrations for Shakespeare, Dante, Edward Young, Thc:,a* Gray, and others. Blake also illustrated his own poems using a technique of relief etching whic:- ru devised. He composed and printed his poems on his own press, then detailec :rlt pages by hand to produce elaborate images that combine verbal and visual aft :: i&r composite art form, or'metatext', that is significantly more than the mere sum c: :]ru component parts. Blake called his technique 'illuminated printing', which we sh-'u,td understand in the sense of the medieval illuminated manuscrlpt whose h-rmn detailed pages ale intended as objects for reflection and meditation. Amon: :mu illuminated poems, Songs of Innocence and of Experience (7789-94) is best kr:nr''ail ,t The visual arts and music 59
ffisffl
r-.: \rhich :,: Jetalle(l. '1 l .;- : ':'!ial art ir' l i- 5111r of::': -'1 \fe sho;,: irose higl - : )rope: A Prophecy, plate 9: 'Enitharmon slepL', 1794. Among i: ' h-st kno'.r.: ZO I Romantic orientations
Longer llluminated narrative poems (which Blake called prophecies) run from the brlef Book of Thel (1789) to the hundred-page [erusalem ltso+-rv;. In these Blake for- mulated a highly personal cosmology or mythological history of the universe. Because each copy was individually coloured over the course of Blake,s career, works like the songs reveal Blake's evolution as a stylist, colourist, and printmaker in their increasingly finely detailed pages.
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J. M. W. Turner and the directions of Romantic art
Joseph Mallord wilriam Turner (see oxforcl companion to the Romantic Age, pp. 73941 was one of the most prolific of all English artists (he created no fewer than 370 oej paintings and nearly 96,000 watercolours, sketches, and engravings.) and one of tlx most enigmatic. A largely serf-taught painter who rose to prominence in the Royrr! Academy of Art and whose personal life uneasily combined confidence and misa_o- thropy, humour and tragedy, classical aesthetic values and idiosyncratic independence of vision, Turner enjoyed considerabre patronage, especially when he chose sublecr from classical antiquity or Scripture that reflected the idea that ,high art, requird 'serious'subiects. He is best known for his innumerable studies of both urban and n:.ra0 scenes-including powerful seascapes-depicting the subject-matter under van conditions of daylight or moonlight. such pictures place him in the vanguard of rr would become Impressionism, even though Turner,s art was arways grounded mort expressiveness than in naturalism. unlike constable, Turner tended not to sketch in oil, choosing instead to pare many watercolour sketches before beginning a version in oils: among the archives of Turner's art, ,unflnished, therefore, we find a great many sketches. \t Turner's earlier paintings are representationar images of natural phenomena, his became increasingly non-naturalistic, featuring especially his characteristic i ation with swirling lines and masses of colour. These are most apparent in scener at sea, like snow storm: steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (rglz),ouh"r" the rousr r and tempestuous clouds are often indistinguishable from one another. T engaging humour is also visible in pictures like Rain, steam, anct speed_Tru t western Railway (1844), in which a hare outruns the chugging engine, and stur'v Sea Monsters (c'1845), wh'e The srave ship (1g40), an eloquentlno moving pm against the inhumanity of the slave trade, reflects Turner,s involvement lrjtfu social and political issues of his time. unlike Constable, Turner was less aod interested in fine detail, so that his pictures often have |,'e hazy, dreamlike q rrffi private interpretations of their subiect-matter rather than any sharp, d qualitv.