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Romanticism 

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Term in use by 1812 (e.g. by poet Coleridge) to distinguish new forms of art and literature from classical tradition. Romantic art placed new emphasis on human psychology and expression of personal feeling and on interest in and response to natural world. This complex shift in artistic attitudes at height from about 1780 to 1830 but influence continuing long after. Overall characteristic a new emotionalism in contrast to prevailing ideas of classical restraint. In British art embraced new responses to nature in art of Constable and Turner as well as new approaches to human history, man's place in the cosmos and relationship to God, examined in work of Blake. Other significant painters of history subjects were Fuseli, Barry and Mortimer. Later phases of Romantic movement in Britain embrace Pre-Raphaelites and Symbolism.
 

William Blake, Frontispiece to `Visions of the Daughters of Albion', circa 1795
William Blake
Frontispiece to `Visions of the Daughters of Albion'
circa 1795
 
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage - Italy, exhibited 1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage - Italy
exhibited 1832
 
John Constable, Sketch for `Hadleigh Castle', circa 1828-9
John Constable
Sketch for `Hadleigh Castle'
circa 1828-9