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The Romantic Age! Youth, ardour, a generous faith in art, excessive passions; amongst fevers, exaggerations, errors, it was a period really full of ideas, personalities and works. Literary Romanticism has been subject to great arguments and violent controversy, particularly because it was considered to be responsible for divisive religious, political or social tendencies. Romantic art received less attention, perhaps because it seemed comparatively unimportant. However, it is possible to dissociate the two movements. They were linked not because of personal friendships developing by chance between a few painters and writers but because those movements, in their different ways, share in the same origin. Born from a common mindset, they had developed in the same atmosphere. There was a Romantic generation the members of which applied their minds to literature and the arts as well as to science, philosophy, politics or industry – in fact to all the forms of activity to which their minds could possibly be applied.

The canons of Romanticism were first formulated in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century. As early as 1770 and 1780 representatives of Sturm und Drang, a movement both literary and political, meaning literally ‘storm and stress’, were rebelling against the Enlightenment and its values. Friedrich von Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe were amongst the followers of Sturm und Drang, who made a religion of individualism and nature as advocated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the middle of the eighteenth century. However, despite that wave of protest the rejection of classical rules was only partial. Sturm und Drang turned its back on classical traditions and literary conventions but its canons of beauty were still based on Antiquity and prescribed the perfection and harmony of forms. Classicism was totally rejected as a whole by the intellectuals contributing to the journal Athenaeum, amongst whom were Wilhelm von Schelling and Novalis representing the ‘Iena Romantics’ group. In contrast with earlier values they put an emphasis on the feeling of infinity, mysticism and the expression of irrationality.

In Ireland, the Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful by Edmund Burke, published in 1756, developed the Romantic vision of nature. In Burke’s remarks on painting, one notes the same tendency through “the painting of the sublime” on the one hand and the “mysticism of landscapes” on the other, clearly exemplified by the works of Caspar David Friedrich. In 1762, James McPherson’s English translation of Poems of Ossian became a reference for Romanticism. Allegedly attributed to a Scottish bard of the third century, the origins of the book are mysterious but it appealed to the collective imagination and plunged its readers into the depths of their dreams.

Thus the European literature of the eighteenth century paved the way for Romanticism, but it is in the art of the nineteenth century, particularly in France, that it reached its zenith. French art at the time formed an imposing structure whose magnificent order reflected the heroic times that had built it. A fanatical admiration for Graeco-Roman Antiquity was still defended. Art’s only goal seemed to be to revive the inspiration and methods of that blessed time, which alone had managed to bring pure, serene and ideal beauty out of humanity. But Antiquity could appear multi-faced depending on the eyes and predispositions of its admirers: by turn it could be solemn, pleasant, frivolous, noble, generous or depraved. When men imagined it tense, stiff, stilted and raised towards inaccessible peaks they projected their own genius onto it. Through Socrates, Romulus and Leonidas they glorified their own century. They praised the human figure, powerful bodies with wide chests, regular facial features, strong contours, refined drawing, vivid colours devoid of ornaments, subordinated nature reduced to the passive role of décor. Everything echoed the tendencies of generations galvanised first by their passion for freedom and then for glory. Bare and stilted statues, devoid of accentuation, appealed to eyes that could not stand the graces of the eighteenth century. Palaces, temples and commemorative monuments tried to convey the majesty of that time through plain, solid and large structures drawing on Vitruve’s repertoire. Inside the buildings, mahogany furniture followed heavy architectural patterns and decorations included chiselled noble copperware, solemn chandeliers and grandfather clocks, wall coverings adorned with large geometrical patterns in which gold, green and Etruscan red were associated, composed austere and simple harmonies designed for a new and rather unrefined society that had forgotten the gentle way of life. It was an artificial but perfectly adequate setting whose consistency was quite remarkable and particularly striking when contrasted with the disorder of the following period. The brilliance of that style, though it was soon to be tarnished, was nevertheless magnificent. At the same time that France provided politics, sciences and the army with men of genius or great talent, she also supplied the arts with an élite, a whole host of stars.

If we put aside our modern prejudices we can understand the pride with which people of the time talked of the “French School”. Around David, the leader, there were painters like Girodet, Gérard, Guérin, Gros and Proudhon. Most of these masters were still active when the Empire collapsed, and they had trained students whose works had started to appear. Based on a strong doctrine illustrated by exemplary works, the French School was well on course to carry on its glorious career.

However, it was fragile as was the Empire itself and complex forces were at work to try and destroy it despite its triumphant appearances. Strangely enough, the French School imposed a precise discipline on artists at the very time when the Revolution was breaking the social codes and teaching individuals that their originality, boldness and energy could get them where they wanted in society. In some it shook up instincts of generosity that had been put to sleep by systematic minds; to others, who had been repressing desires of wealth, pleasure and brilliance, it offered a multitude of exciting opportunities and made them seek new and diverse acquaintances and lifestyles. Hypnotised by a conventional view of Antiquity, David had ignored the past totally until the revolutionary crisis rekindled his interest in history. As a child Michelet, wild with enthusiasm, would pace up and down the rooms of the Musée des Monuments Français (Museum of French Monuments) where Lenoir, who founded the museum with the stone works he saved from the violent fury of the Revolution, displayed several centuries of history. A certain image of France started to be outlined, albeit vague and pale at first, and the troubadour style foreshadowed the development of a new kind of spirit.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Vow of Louis XIII, 1824.

Oil on canvas, 421 × 262 cm.

Cathédrale Notre-Dame, Montauban.

Jean-Baptiste Mallet, Gothic Bathroom, 1810.

Oil on canvas, 40.5 × 32.5 cm.

Château-Musée de Dieppe, Dieppe.

At the same time there arose an interest in churches and cathedrals, buildings which had been previously looked down upon. In 1802 Chateaubriand published Genius of Christianity which echoed the hopes of a whole generation. He claimed in it that religious inspiration was superior to all others. Elsewhere, the Empire kept silent whilst economic activity slowed down and young men were decimated in a state permanently at war, which caused a feeling of weariness. The influence of Rousseau deepened in this climate, manifest in Sénancour’s 1804 telling of Obermann’s dark destiny, who alone in the Alps sought consolation in nature.

So despite appearing arrogant the general atmosphere tended towards the dissolution of the French School. But it faced more direct assaults from within the artistic world itself. David had established himself through total rebellion against the eighteenth century. He disowned his masters and, with them, the whole inheritance of traditions accumulated since the Renaissance, preferring antique style models and casting. In 1793 the Louvre Museum opened to the public. Victories over Italy and Flanders allowed it soon to be filled with masterpieces whilst a growing fancy of collectors for Dutch paintings became quite noticeable.

At the heart of the French School, amongst its protagonists and most famous masters, a new and transformed future was in preparation, and the people of the time got a partial sense of it. They did not realise that The Death of Marat, The Coronation or the multiplication of portraits helped artists in liberating themselves, but they feared Gros’s action. A shy man, whose most sincere desire would have been to become the loyal right-hand man of David, he was driven by an internal force seemingly in spite of himself. Unwillingly, he carried the truths that were about to blossom. Napoleon at Jaffa was more than the preface to Romanticism. It asserted the joy of painting as well as a research into characterisation, movement and liveliness, to which orientalism and a picturesque quality were added. This famous painting that young people kept referring to was not an exceptional phenomenon, however. The whole of Gros’s work, his huge paintings, his portraits, sketches and watercolours, developed a whole programme: the supremacy of colour, the study of places and races, an interest in animals and particularly the big cats. National history was represented by the Visit of Charles V and François I at Saint-Denis; he thought of Othello and Ugolin in 1804 and the posthumous portrait of Lucien Bonaparte’s wife is shrouded in a modern kind of melancholy.

Hubert Robert, Design for the Grande Galerie in the Louvre, 1796.

Oil on canvas, 115 × 145 cm.

Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Ingres’s works like Jupiter and Thetis – still amazing to us nowadays – were painted at the time of David’s supremacy and are full of inspiration, sensitivity and expressive moods that were totally new. Among so many docile artists Ingres showed an untameable independence; he had broken off with David and wanted to ‘become an innovator, have his works imprinted with a character unknown’ before him. Acquaintance with the Italian primitives had polished his subtle drawing. He was one of the first to acknowledge their art as he was also the first to consider Greek vases. He would feed his genius with ideas from all sorts of areas: classical Antiquity, history, poetry, the reality of the time and oriental countries. He did not look down on colour, adored Titian and, being versatile, nervous, changing his style from one painting to the other, he would sometimes invent sharp harmonies and precious dissonances. With an implacable precision but also infinite suppleness his lines shrouded pure but non abstract shapes in which concentrated fieriness and a sensual love for beauty were visible. He who painted Fingal’s fantasy paradise, Thetis’ wavy body, and surrounded the dreamy Madame de Sénones with a floating languid atmosphere was a pre-Romantic in his own way, like Gros, and in fact more exceptional and more modern than the latter. His power was not yet recognised, though. People were sensitive to a charm that was seen as ineffable but feared the technical examples that he set. It was believed that he drew badly because he was not superstitious about the outline. On bluish paper he would use charcoal and chalk to bring out volumes and shroud synthetic and quivering shapes in space. He kept a love for graces in an heroic age but with a penetrating fieriness unknown to the eighteenth century, and he added a sense of worry to it that dragged him away from the past and made him closer to us.

Sculpture developed in a more balanced way. It was obsessed by a passion for heroic ideals more than any other form of art. Houdon continued to flourish, restating his profound genius with a bust of Napoleon.

A few signs of something about to be born were also visible in architecture. The emperor’s official architects, Percier and Fontaine, were touched by the smiles of the Italian Renaissance.

So at a time when it was believed that the arts had taken a definite direction and found fixed shapes, some forces were at work preparing for an evolution that was waiting to happen. Those forces were complex and paradoxical in many ways. Some wished for the supremacy of reality whilst others praised imagination and dreams. None of these tendencies gave way but their fate would be determined by future events. If the Empire had grown stronger and had settled in a stable order, minds would have relaxed gradually; a calm, healthy and balanced kind of art would probably have developed ensuring the triumph of realism. But on the contrary, if a storm was to burst out, a period of crisis would consequently start in which disoriented artists would listen to their sensitivity and nerves rather than rationality: that would mark the triumph of Romanticism.

It turned out to be a storm and a most terrible one. The fall of the Empire, the invasion of the country and the return of the Bourbons shook France deeply, and it was left feeling humiliated and hurt. From then on, neither religion, politics nor any position in society could offer a secure shelter. The mal du siècle became exacerbated. Helpless men turned in on themselves; they looked into their own minds in search of the laws at work behind their actions. They soared painfully on the uncertain paths of liberty, guided by their feelings and not by logic. At that time England, from which France had been cut off because of war, recreated the contacts initiated by Voltaire in the eighteenth century. France had already turned to Germany, and the influence of Germanic countries occurred precisely in the way that Madame de Staël had indicated with great lucidity: Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Constable, Lawrence and Beethoven came to feed the longings of an anxious generation. This is how Romantic times started.

Édouard Cibot, Anne Boleyn in the Tower, 1835.

Oil on canvas, 162 × 129 cm.

Musée Rolin, Autun.

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy, called Girodet-Trioson, The Entombment of Atala, 1808.

Oil on canvas, 207 × 267 cm.

Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (28^th July 1830), 1830.

Oil on canvas, 260 × 325 cm.

Musée du Louvre, Paris.