The Romantic Period: 1789-1848

As a response to neoclassicism, romantic artists responded to a climate of revolution and rebirth. Thy longed to cast off restraints and create a new subjective, more imaginative world. Romanticism affected the literary, artistic, and musical realms during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

 

Artists created work with a new focus: one on the individual, imagination, nature, emotion, and democracy. 

The Raft of the Medusa, Théodore Géricault (1818–1819) 

The oil painting shows Medusa, a government boat that broke down off the coast of West Africa. The captain gave the six lifeboats to government officials and officers. The remaining 150 passengers were relegated to a raft. Only a handful survived. The painting symbolizes French Romanticism by criticizing the corruption of the administration of Louis XVIII.