From Classicism to Romanticism

1. Classicism

Despite the numerous scientific discoveries all along the 18th century and 19th century, classical art kept traces of old and outdated concepts like the geocentric universe: the theory that the earth is at the centre of the universe and the sun and the other planets go around it. This conception reflected a divine harmony, producing the music of the spheres which could not be heard by Man as he is an impure creature. Another idea was that the universe was divided into several plans, each ruled by an unchanging hierarchy. The same relation is to be found between God and Man, The sun and the cosmos, the king and his subjects, the father and his family, the lion with the other animals, the eagle and the other birds, the rose and the other flowers and so on. There is a link between the Macrocosm and the Microcosm: if there is a disorder in one it affects the other and conversely. In classical art: the shapes are clear; nature is mastered by man and reflects human order. Emotions are totally under control.

The geocentric model was gradually replaced by the heliocentric model of Copernicus (1543), Galileo and Kepler: The earth (and so Man) is no longer at the centre of the universe (eccentricity): the sun is now at the centre and the earth and other planets revolve around it and not the contrary, so they are not static.

1. Romanticism

Romanticism reacted against the rigidity of classicism and went opposite. Romanticism is also called by critics “The disappearance of God”: the disappearance of any centralizing system, which led to deep worries and anxieties: the romantic artist is free to feel but also fears this liberty. In literature emotion and passion prevail and the ‘I’ narrator looks within his inner nature and without to the world. The Romantics reacting against the earlier 18th century admiration for the ordered and cultivated, became interested in the wild and untamed aspects of nature.
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