Revolution and Romanticism

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Revolution and Romanticism

• HUM 2020
• Chapter 12

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Values of Romanticism

• Rejection of simplicity, proportion and
  restraint.
• Valued
• Feeling, Intuition, Passion, Imagination,
  Spontaneity

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Revolutions and Rights

• 1776-- American Revolution
• 1789-- French Revolution
• Democracy, republicanism, equality before the law
• Congresses, presidencies, constitutions--results
  of those conflicts

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The Revolution in America

• American colonists resentment of British control
• Declaration of Independence, 1776
• Principles of Enlightenment--John Lockes
  Treatise on Civil Government
• Thomas Jefferson equality, civil rights and
  popular sovereignty from philosophes
• Federalist Papers authority of state rights of
  individual--did not address slavery

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The Revolution in France

• Louis XVI Middle class delegates Oath of the
  Tennis Court
• July 14 Bastille prison attached
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and the
  Citizen-- from Rousseaus thoughts
• Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite
• 1793, beheading of monarchs
• Reign of Terror began

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The Napoleonic Era

• 1799--disillusioned citizens
• New hero Napoleon Bonaparte
• Dreams of imperial glory
• Crowned himself emperor in 1804
• Campaign to conquer Europe
• Defeated in 1814 at Waterloo
• Imprisoned for the rest of his life in St. Helena

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Napoleon and the Arts

• Imitated Roman emperors--Paris imperial capital
  like Rome
• Power advertised by arts and buildings
• Louvre--museum to pieces stolen from conquered
  countries
• Triumphal arches and columns
• La Madeleine--Greek temple

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• Jacques-Louis David--Painter to the Empire
• Coronation scene and equestrian painting
• Benoists Portrait of a Black Woman
• Counterpoint to Canovas sculpture of Napoleons
  sister as Venus

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Colonial Revolutionaries

• 1793--Toussaint LOuverture led Haitis revolt
  against the French--Napoleon imprisoned him.
• Simon Bolivar--wanted to create a United States
  of South America. Obtained freedom for
  Venezuela, Colombia and Peru.

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The Romantic Hero

• Romantics preferred feeling and imagination to
  intellect and reason. Attracted to the
  picturesque in nature and the past prized
  creativity and cast off neoclassical restraint
  and laws.
• 1775-1850

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Beethoven

• Suffering romantic genius
• Deafness at 25
• Pianist in Vienna, able to sell his compositions
• Symphony No. 3 Eroica was the bridge between
  Classical style and romantic style

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• Added piccolo and trombone to the symphonic
  orchestra
• Symphony Number 5 in C Minor
• Confrontation with fate Fate knocking at the
  door
• Motif Term for short musical idea

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Beethovens Ninth Symphony

• On this edition of Milestones of the Millennium,
  we look back to the very first performance of
  Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on Friday, May 7,
  1824. Today, this masterpiece is recognized as
  one of the all-time greatest achievements, not
  just in music, but for humanity as a whole.
  Admired around the world, the symphony has been
  used countless times to underscore momentous
  occasions such as the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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Musical Virtuosos

• Paganini violin
• Chopin piano
• Schumann Songs and symphonies
• Clara Schumann Lieder (songs)
• Brahms symphonies

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Goethe and Faust

• Faust romantic masterpiece drama in two parts
• Delacroix illustrated a French translation
• Schubert composed songs
• Gounod opera Faust Ambition to burst all
  human constraint and indulge unquenched desire
  for experience

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Delacroix and the Byronic Hero

• French more attracted to sensuality of Lord
  Byron Don Juan, life of sexual freedom,
  political idealism and exotic travel.
• Intellectual and moral freedom
• Eugene Delacroix rebelled against the academy
• Color, drama and exotic themes

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Death of Sardanapalus and Liberty Leading the
People

• Orgy of egoism, violence and sexuality
• When threatened by rebellion he destroys his
  possessions and himself
• Revolution of 1830 overthrew the Bourbon king
• Unity of the classes

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Elements of Romanticism

• Heroic individualism Faust and Lord Byron
• Protest against political and social injustice
• Attraction for nature and medieval times
• Fascination with evil and the exotic
• Sensibility that responded to historical
  circumstances

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Romantic Social Protest William Blake

• Sympathetic observer of those enslaved by the
  industrial city
• Condemned the ills of urban existence

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Romantic Feminism

• Mary Wollstonecraft A Vindication of the
  Rights of Women Compared women to soldiers
• Revolutions did not liberate women. Napoleons
  legal code denied women the right to hold
  property
• Western nations did not allow women to vote

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Goya and Spain

• Goyas paintings depicted the senseless brutality
  of war
• Executions of the Third of May 1808
• Christ-like martyr in white
• Lamp enlightenment (irony)
• The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters,
  Romantic fascination with evil

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The Romantics and Nature

• Romantic landscapes
• Constable The Hay Wain rustic landscapes
• Turner The Slave Ship Rain, Steam and Speed
  The Great Western Railway
• Effects of fog and smoke

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Romantic Exotism

• Middle classes become strong
• Drawn to exotic and grotesque
• Colonies overseas Africa and Asia
• Fascination with Arabic customs and dress
• Ingres Disciple of David--The Turkish Bath
• Classical figures

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Berliozs Symphonie Fantastique

• Innovated with program music (composition that
  tells a story or describes a place)
• Story of Irish actress who rejected him
• Fifth movement musician is dead and his beloved
  joins the celebration in a witches dance
• The macabre

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Symphonie Fantastique

• A young musician of great sensibility and
  plentiful imagination, in deep despair because of
  hopeless love, has poisoned himself with opium.
  The drug is not strong enough to kill him but
  puts him into deep sleep with strange dreams. His
  sensations, emotions, and memories, as they
  filter through his fevered brain, are transformed
  into musical images and ideas. The beloved one
  herself becomes to him a tune, a recurring theme
  (the idée fixe) which continually haunts him.

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First two movements

• 1. Reveries, Passions. First he remembers the
  weariness of the soul, that indefinable longing,
  that sombre melancholia and those objectless joys
  which he experienced before meeting his beloved.
  Then the explosive love which immediately
  inspired him, his delirious suffering, his return
  to tenderness, his religious consolations.2. A
  Ball. At a ball, in the middle of a noisy
  brilliant fête, he finds his beloved again.

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• 3. In the Country. On a summer evening in the
  country, he hears two shepherds calling each
  other with folk melodies. The pastoral duet in
  such surroundings, the gentle rustle of the trees
  swayed by the wind, some reasons for hope which
  had come to his knowledge recentlyall unite to
  fill his heart with a unique tranquility and lend
  brighter colours to his fancies. But his beloved
  appears new, spasms contract his heart, and he is
  filled with dark premonition. What if she proved
  faithless? Only one of the shepherds resumes his
  rustic tune. The sun sets. Far away there is a
  rumble of thundersolitudesilence.4. March to
  the Scaffold. He dreams he has killed his loved
  one, that he is condemned to death and led to his
  execution. A march, now gloomy yet ferocious, now
  solemn yet brilliant, accompanies the procession.
  Noisy outbursts are followed without pause by the
  heavy sound of marching footsteps. Finally, like
  a last thought of love, the idée fixe briefly
  appears, to be cut off by the fall of an axe.

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Last Movement

• . Dream of a Witches' Sabbath. He sees himself at
  a Witches' Sabbath, surrounded by a fearful crowd
  of spectres, sorcerers, and monsters of every
  kind, united for his burial. Unearthly sounds,
  groans, shrieks of laughter, distant cries, to
  which others seem to respond! The melody of his
  beloved is heard but it has lost its character of
  nobility and reserve. It is now an ignoble dance
  tune, trivial and grotesque. It is she who comes
  to the Sabbath! A shout of joy greets her
  arrival. She joins the diabolical orgy. The
  funeral knell, burlesque of the Dies Irae. Dance
  of the Witches. The dance and the Dies Irae
  combine.

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The Romantic Novel

• Fascination with evil and the demonic The
  Gothic novel
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Charlotte and Emily Bronte
• Mary Shelleys Frankenstein
• Hero who suffers a conflict between his God-like
  ambitions and moral blindness