Romanticism

Decatur Boarding the Tripolitan Gunboat is an action packed historical scene by Irish-American painter Dennis Malone Carter recalls the confrontation and capture of a boat from Tripoli under Turkish colours, seen in the left background. Stephen Decatur was commissioned by the US government to combat the activities of pirates in the Mediterranean. This event took …

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Portrait of Paganini is an 1832 painting by French Romantic artist Eugene Delacroix. Analysis of the Portrait of Paganini Eugene Delacroix limits the use of colour in this 1832 portrait of Paganini, the world-famous Italian violinist. French Romantic artist Delacroix heard him play in Paris a year before this tribute. We have black centred on …

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Thomas Lawrence painted this Portrait of King George IV in 1822, two years after his coronation. Already an avid art collector, King George comissioned the most successful portrait painter in England at the time to create this rather informal depiction of the new King. Thomas Lawrence’s Portrait of King George IV was purchased by Sir …

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The Great Pyramid of Giza by Russian painter Ivan Aivazovsky is an 1871 monument to a monument. The pyramid, a symbol for the sublimity and possibility of human endeavour, is juxtaposed with the sublime warm North African light. Nature and man complementing each other. Ivan Aivazovsky’s The Great Pyramid of Giza is in a private …

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The Ninth Wave is an 1850 Romanticised depiction of a large threatening wave barrelling towards the floating wreckage of a shipwreck with survivors. Russian-Armenian painter Ivan Aivazovsky portrays the power and destructiveness of nature. Yet, in the shape of the wreckage – a Christian cross – hints at the approach of dawn and a the …

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The Murder of the Children of King Edward shows the moment before the sleeping sons of Edward IV of England are murdered by the men peering over the bed. German painter Theodor Hildebrandt here, in Romantic style, elicits extreme emotion from the viewer. It was painted in 1835, some 350 years after Edward V and …

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Theodor Hildebrandt’s 1829 work The Robber the title character is shown with his gun and on a scale in the picture space that allows an examination of psychology. In the Romantic tradition, as Hildenbrandt is, the artist often identified with the social outsider – as shown here. Theodor Hildebrandt’s The Robber is in the National …

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San Giorgio Maggiore in the Morning by English Romantic painter J.M.W. Turner we are presented with a Venetian scene. Such is Turner’s organisation of space – the building is in the distance – that San Giorgio Maggiore seems to almost dissolve into the atmospheric effects in which the artist revels. Painted in 1819, Turner made …

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In The Deer in Petworth Park by the English painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), the objects and creatures of the external world are treated as if a vehicle for self-expression. Pentworth Park in West Sussex, South East England is renowned for having the largest herd of Fallow deer in the world. The deer of the title …

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French painter Gustave Courbet was exiled to Switzerland in 1873 for involvement in the socialist revolutionary Paris Commune two years earlier. It was during this time in 1874 when he painted View of Lake Geneva (View of Lac Leman in his native French). This is one of the artist’s final works, he died three years …

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The Archers by Scottish portrait painter Henry Raeburn is a 1789 double portrait depicting Robert Ferguson of Raith and Ronald Craufurd Ferguson. Robert Ferguson of Raith on the left side of the painting with a bow and arrow at the ready and to his right is his younger brother Sir Ronald Craufurd Ferguson. Painted in …

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This 1822 oil on canvas portrait painting by English painter Sir Thomas Lawrence is of King George IV of England. Analysis of Lawrence’s Portrait of King George IV Thomas Lawrence was the President of the Royal Academy at the time this portrait was painted and King George IV was an avid art collector himself. Thomas …

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British painter John Constable’s 1832 The Opening of Waterloo Bridge seen from Whitehall Stairs is of commemoration, that is it is a reportage of the opening of Waterloo Bridge on the 18th of June in 1817, the second anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Again Constable affords a great expanse of the painting to the …

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The Two Sons of the 1st Earl of Talbot is a 1793 double portrait painting by English portrait painter and President of the Royal Academy Thomas Lawrence. This work is located in the is in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, Germany. Analysis of The Two Sons of the 1st Earl of Talbot This portrait of …

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The story for The Seventh Plague of Egypt by English Romantic painter John Martin is taken from the book of Exodus in the Bible when Moses calls upon God to release on the kingdom of Egypt the seventh plague of thunder and hail so that the Israelites may be freed from slavery. Moses, on the …

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The Morning is an 1808 painting by German artist of the Romantic era Philipp Otto Runge (1777-1810). Runge was one of the most important of the German Romantic painters, along with Caspar David Friedrich, despite his short life and The Morning is a wonderful example of this. Not only was he an artist but he …

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Jewish Wedding in Morocco is an 1839 Orientalist painting by the leading French artist of the Romantic period Eugène Delacroix. It is located in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. Analysis of Delacroix’s Jewish Wedding in Morocco Delacroix, (1798-1863) first travelled to North Africa in 1832 and was captivated by its various cultures, remarking in …

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Weymouth Bay is an 1816 landscape and seascape painting by English Romantic artist John Constable depicting a scene in South West England on the English Channel coast. British painter John Constable (1776-1837) was among the most influential of the English Romantics and profoundly inspired the likes of Eugene Delacroix. Constable was most renowned for his …

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British painter John Constable’s Stonehenge from 1835 again revels in dramatic atmospheric effects as the sky is swept with broad strokes of light that signal the mysticism surrounding the prehistoric monument. There is a cohesion between Constable’s choice of subject matter and his characteristic dwelling upon the elements of nature. The sky is so quickly …

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The Scholar is an 1831 painting by English genre painter Henry Liverseege which depicts a scholar studying a book. Henry Liverseege (1802-32), who produced a large number of mostly genre paintings depicting literary and folklore subjects during his short life. Here in The Scholar from 1831 we are shown a seated man dressed in a …

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