Romanticism Archive
Completed in 1824, The Sea of Ice or sometimes referred as The Wreck of Hope is a piece by the German painter Casper David Friedrich. It represents the accident of a ship which is drowning under the ice while the broken ice sheet by the accident has arisen upwards significantly. The top and bottom of the painting also resembles the popular color use of blue vs. orange, abundantly apparent in modern day art, films, posters and paintings. Subject The subject isn’t a random depiction of ice and ship-accident. The painting was made during the period when the expeditions to the north and south poles were in talks. Though, the attempts to a successful expedition are much older than the 19th century. The original title for […]
The Titan’s Goblet by American artist Thomas Cole is a romantic landscape painting which combines the elements of reality and fiction into one and creates a fictional landscape with very conveying representation. It was made in 1833. The composition The setting of the landscape is regular with mountain ranges, setting sun, a river (or lake) and big bright sky of evening in the background. It is an aerial view of the scene. Until this, it is a regular landscape painting. But, the point of interest in it makes the whole difference moving it from the category of landscape to the sub-categories of romantic and fictional landscape. A big, made out of rock goblet stands slightly on the right side of the painting. It is full […]
A simple painting at first sight, about three soldiers waiting for something or on their way to somewhere is the creation of Viktor Vasnetsov. Though, the importance and reach of the painting is conceived when we know that this ranks as the most popular painting in Russia, pushing Morning in a Pine Forest by Ivan Shishkin at the second place. Seemingly simple painting holds a grand history. The soldiers are the three most popular Bogatyrs of Russian folklore and myths – Alyosha Popovich, Ilya Muromets and Dobrynya Nikitich. Bogatyrs were the folklore heroes who would fight against the enemies and protect the homeland. Anyone could have become a bogatyr, even a peasant. Ilya Muromets was such a peasant before he embarked on the journey of […]