William Blake, Plate 2, Title Page, from America. A Prophecy, 1793. Color-printed relief etching in green black with pen and black ink and watercolor on paper. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
"Distant Lands, Foreign Peoples" reveals the artist as an explorer, fascinated by remote worlds. The Romantics came of age in an era of colonial expansion, travel, trade, and ethnographic study, which led to both scholarly discourses and popular fantasies concerning non-Western cultures and locales that stimulated the artistic imagination. "The Artist as Social Critic" complicates the notion of the Romantic artist as an isolated dreamer removed from society and politics. Using dissident political imagery, many artists of this period became vociferous social critics, carrying out the Enlightenment mission of free thought and action. Works like Géricault’s Retour de Russie (Return from Russia; 1818) serve as scathing indictments of war and Imperial ambition.
"Religion after the Age of Reason" illustrates the changing approaches to sacred themes in the Romantic era. Diverse compositions reveal that the Romantic engagement with religion was not a naive reversion to mysticism but rather a means of individualizing biblical themes and religious experience to extend their cultural relevance. Complementing this section is "The Literary Impulse," which showcases a range of works inspired by literature, from classical mythology to modern poetry.
"Beyond Likeness" focuses on Romantic portraiture, which emphasized the psychological state of the subject, evoking an empathetic relationship between sitter and viewer. Finally, "The Changing Role of the Sketch" features objects that illustrate how technical processes changed in tandem with widening ambitions for art. Favoring direct perception over highly constructed compositions, the Romantic sketch would come to be reflected in a broad range of developments in modern art, from Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism.
Etienne Carjat, Victor Hugo, from La galerie contemporaine, published 1878. Woodburytype. Yale University Art Gallery, Everett V. Meeks, B.A. 1901, FundIn addition to bringing together outstanding works from the Yale Center for British Art and the Yale University Art Gallery, the exhibition features select loans from important private collections and from Yale’s Lewis Walpole Library. The Critique of Reason celebrates the richness and range of Romantic art at the University, representing it afresh for a new generation of museumgoers.
Romantic art is perhaps best defined by its refusing definition. Intensifying the subjective nature of human experience, Romantic artists reached toward willfully indeterminate goals. They launched their work as songs without words — that is, as open-ended expressions that each individual viewer creatively completes. In the opening lecture for the exhibition, Joseph Leo Koerner, B.A. 1980, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, puts words to some of the pictures on view. Reception to follow. Generously sponsored by the Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund.
Pages: 1 · 2
More Articles
- The Guggenheim Museum Exhibits and Store in New York City; Works & Process Commissions on Tour
- Lynn Hershman Leeson: Who Has Celebrated Her 80th Birthday and a New Exhibition, TWISTED, at The New Museum in New York City
- Catwalk, Behind the Scenes: Fashion of the Dutch From 1625 To 1960
- One Hundred Books Famous in Children's Literature at the Grolier Club: Stories and illustrations entwined with enticing worlds
- A Trip to New York City: The ABC of It; Why Children's Books Matter