The Romantic Period

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The Romantic Period Realism
Greek/Roman (Classical)
Renaissance
Medieval
Baroque
Neoclassical

• 1820 - 1900

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The Romantic Period

• Civil War in the US
• Industrial Age begins with increased
  sophistication of machines, technology,
  locomotives, transportation
• The Industrial Revolution replaced people with
  machines. 
  People fought back with
  their feelings and
  emotions.  

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The Romantic Period

• Very different from the reason, order and rules
  of the Neoclassical period
• Romantic era was emotion, adventure, and
  imagination

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Romantic Period

• Ballet - influence of dance academies (thank you
  King Louis XIV)
• Ballet was well on its way to becoming a popular
  art form
• Ballet was used as an addition to opera
  performances

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Romantic Period - Ballet

• Dances had very little content or storyline
• Story told through pantomime
• Heavy costumes limited movements of dancers
• Jean-Georges Nouverre - choreographer - believed
  ballet should be more meaningful and should be
  able to emotionally move the audience

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Romantic Period - Ballet

• Nouverre created the Seven basic movements of
  dance
• Plier - to bend
• Etendre - to stretch
• Relever - to rise
• Sauter - to jump
• Tourner - to turn
• Glisser - to glide
• Elancer - to dart
• Nouverre move there!!

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Romantic Period - Ballet

• After the French Revolution, the arts were
  available for the general public to enjoy (no
  longer just for the upper classes)
• Stories of the supernatural became popular
• Ballerinas cast as supernatural creatures
  (fairies, ghosts, ) began dancing on their toes
  (en pointeon the toes)
• Pointe shoes - special shoes used for dancing en
  pointe

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Romantic Period - Ballet
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Romantic Period - Ballet

• Eventually, the heavy fabrics, wigs and masks
  were eliminated
• Costumes were made from tulle (a fine net used
  for veils or tutus)
• Tutu - ballet skirt - the first tutus had a
  hemline that fell between the knee and the ankle
• Female dancers started to become more popular
  during this Golden Age of ballet

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Romantic Period - Ballet

• The center of ballet began to shift from France
  to Russia
• The Romanov family wanted to westernize their
  court, so they invited artists from western
  Europe to perform in Russia
• Petipa - ballet dancer who developed the short
  skirt (tutu) that allowed audiences to view the
  advances in technique for female dancers
• Petipa was also a choreographer for well known
  ballets with scores by Tchaikovsky

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Romantic Period Theatre

• Melodrama - means music drama
• Each character in a melodrama has a theme song
• Melodrama uses stock characters (stereotypical
  characters)
• Melodrama had a villain, hero, and heroine
• Actors would often overact to get the audience to
  respond (youre being melodramatic)

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Romantic Period Theatre

• Melodrama
• Plots had good always winning over evil
• Romantic subplot between hero and heroine
• Villain wanted to steal the heros money and/or
  girl
• Hero rescues the heroine just in time

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Romantic Period Music

• Beethoven had established himself as a
  self-supporting musician (didnt need a
  patron/employer)
• Musicians no longer relied on patrons (employers)
• Opera was very popular
• Music was written with great difficulty so
  performers could show off (virtuoso)
• New instruments added to orchestra
• Piano was one of the most popular instruments

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Romantic Period Music

• Pyotr Tchaikovsky
• Wrote music for numerous genres, but is known
  mostly for his ballets
• Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker

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Romantic Period Music

• Richard Wagner
• Known for his operas
• Leitmotif - short melodies assigned to people or
  ideas in his operas
• Ring Cycle - set of 4 operas based on German
  mythology (would take over 16 hours to perform
  the all back to back)

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Romantic Period Art

• Romantic era artists created their work as a
  means of revolt against the order and reason of
  the Neoclassical era
• Movement toward nature and imagination
• Emotion and an interest in the exotic and the
  supernatural

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Romantic Period Art

• John Constable
• British landscape artist
• Artwork reflected the rural scenes of England and
  the elements of daily life that are associated
  with those scenes
• Began an attempt to capture the moods of changing
  light
• (Constable - landscapes - stables are outside)

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Romantic Period Art

• Francisco Goya
• Spanish painter
• Works recorded historical events that showed the
  prejudices and ignorance of society (unusual for
  this period of time)
• Near the end of his life, he began creating
  paintings of insanity, madness and fantasy
• Became blind AND deaf (many believe that the
  pigments he used in his paints may have poisoned
  him)
• (Goya could be gory)

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Goya, The Third of May 1808, 1814 - 1815
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(No Transcript)
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Realism Art style (late 19th century)

• Art style with simple goals
• Seek the truth (lets get real)
• Find beauty in the commonplace
• Focus on the industrial revolution and the
  conditions suffered by the working class
• Rejected the dream-like qualities of Romantic art

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Realism Art style

• Gustave Courbet
• His painting The Stone Breakers began the realism
  art movement
• Wanted to show life, people, places as they
  really were instead of idealized views

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Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers. 1848
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Gustave Courbet. Burial at Ornans.
1849-1850. Oil on
canvas, 10ft x 22ft
This size painting would have previously been
reserved for a religious or royal subject, not a
commoners funeral.
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Realism Art style

• Edouard Manet
• Believed that art should reflect the present
  rather than the past
• Transitional artist between Realism and
  Impressionism

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Manet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1863
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Manet, The Absinthe Drinker 1859
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Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Berg, 1882
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Realism in Theatre

• Melodramas popularity began to decrease
• People wanted to see more realistic drama
• Playwrights believed that the subject matter of
  their plays should be lifelike
• Characters are not stereotypical
• Use of everyday language
• Not all happy endings - suicide, infidelity,
  unhappy marriages

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Realism in Theatre

• Henrik Ibsen
• Father of Realism
• His play Hedda Gabler ends in the main
  characters suicide
• In A Dolls House, the female leaves her husband
  and children at the end

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Realism in Theatre

• George Bernard Shaw
• Wanted his plays to educate society
• Wrote Pygmalian. Was the basis for the popular
  20th century musical My Fair Lady