Romanticism Art

Romantic art was expressed by individualism, irrationalism, creativity, emotions and nature. During this time, emotion was considered more important over reason along with the senses over intellect. Since artists during this period were in revolt against the orders, they favored the revival of potentially unlimited number of styles, which pretty much can be considered as anything that they liked or anything that pleased them. This artistic concept, which emerged as individual experience, showed specific love of exotic or foreign subjects, bright colors, and a dramatic use of light and line. Romantic artists often explore themes of passion, imagination, and the subconscious.

Albert Bierstadt tended to use large canvases, hence the size of the picture which was said to "dwarf" the size of normal paintings because he believed himself to be much more elegant than other painters. The romanticism is clear in his choices of subject and in his use of light as the "Ancon" is of a bright color, in the dark water. Albert liked to paint with special features like atmospheric elements like fog, clouds and mist to emphasize and balance the feel of his work. As one can see that in the picture above, the mood is set to be dark, mainly because the ship has wrecked and he uses the images of clouds and little sunlight along with a dark, almost gloomy island to set off and create a more dramatic feel. Albert tended to stay with landscapes and nature, along with most romantic artists because nature, the genius, their passions and inner struggles, their moods, mental potentials, the heroes fascinated them.

Unlike Romanticism, Baroque art ends to focus on Saints, the Virgin Mary, and other well known Bible stories. However, although religious painting, history painting, fables, and portraits were still considered the most influential pieces, portraits, landscape and still life scenes were also very common. Baroque art also uses rich and deep color, and intense light and dark shadows, just like Albert had created and favored in his. In Nativity by Josefa de Ð""bidos, Josef, like Bierstadt, uses rich colors like dark reds and blacks to emphasize mood and feel. Although this is a religious image and not like the landscapes and portraits that Bierstadt does, it is from Obidos' creation of the image from his mind, which is widely used in the romantic era. He, like Bierstadt, once again, shows to use of light, as the single candle lights up the room and creates the aura around the child in the center of the picture. The use of