Varieties of Romanticism in Art Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Varieties of Romanticism in Art - Assignment Example Looking closely at a particular finished artwork can help the viewer to understand important concepts within the given society, such as the relationship between women and men or the political forces at work. By comparing several works of the Romanticist period, one can begin to understand the underlying forces of the period and thus appreciate the individual approaches to a greater degree. Romanticism focused on more direct emotional expression than the highly constructed neoclassicist approach that preceded it. â€Å"An interesting schematic explanation calls romanticism the predominance of imagination over reason and formal rules (classicism) and over the sense of fact or the actual (realism)† (Holman & Harmon, 2001). Characteristics of the style identified by Welleck (2003) include a â€Å"revolt against the principles of neo-classicism criticism, the rediscovery of older English literature, the turn toward subjectivity and the worship of external nature slowly prepared during the eighteenth century† (196). The period idolized the imagination as the highest of human capacities due largely in part to its creative abilities and as a means of reacting to sweeping change in every aspect of life. It also esteemed nature not only because of the creative element inherent in it, but also because of the manifestation of the imagination that could be found with in it in the sense that we create what we see. The world was full of symbols and signs that would portend future events and actions which were knowable through their relationship to the myths and legends of antiquity. Thus, it was not necessary or even fully expressive to remain doggedly true to physical vision. This approach to art can be seen as early as 1781 in the work of Henry Fuseli. In his numerous paintings and drawings, this artist chose to focus on elements of the imagination and its effects on the living experience of the human animal. The Romantic approach can be

Narrative Writting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Narrative Writting - Essay Example I’ve lived here for about a year, but I still don’t know all that many people and an invitation to a costume party is unlikely at this point. The only people I know are the policeman and his wife next door and they’re not really the partying type. Then the doorbell rings. Not just the one she’s standing next to in the movie, but the one right behind my head. I almost hit my head on the ceiling I jump so high. The ring is followed immediately by frantic knocking. The knowledge that it’s the killer on the other side of the door in Scream doesn’t help much in getting me to answer the door. My feet are lead anvils and my legs are Jell-O, but some kind of curious invisible hook has snagged inside my belly compelling me to move to the door even while the two hemispheres of my brain argue back and forth about the wisdom of this movement. My right arm reaches to bang on the neighbor’s wall. He is a cop, after all. But the wall we share is on my left side, so it’s a fruitless but valiant effort by the creative side of me to preserve me from my logical curiosity. The ten steps it would take for me to reach the door of my tiny apartment have stretched to a marathon mile and the standard beige carpet has become molasses warmed. I have to walk past a darkened hallway on my right before I even come close to the door. The air kicks on at just this moment and I receive a quick burst of warm air puffing out of the open spaces. It feels like the breath of some giant creature leaning against my neck. The air is stale, I haven’t cleaned yet this week, and it’s full of dust since this is the first week the heater’s been on this year. This hallway reaches back into the bedrooms and bathroom areas. It’s an open hole, a gaping darkness, threatening to swallow me up or concealing malevolent beings, I don’t know which. I’m actually afraid to move across this open space. It just now occurs to me that the cat had