Romanticism in the arts was brought in during the 18th-19th century as a movement, it strayed away from the classical art form and brought in the use of nature, emotion and imagination. It was used by painters, writers, poets and photographers later on, it was used as symbolism to show how nature has changed and how industrialisation had taken over in many areas.
Romanticism artists
William Blake was one of the first English artists who used romanticism in their artwork, he created powerful and unique images where he used colour and was able to create a lot of hand-drawn books. In Blakes last decade before his death, he recognised how there was a whole new generation of romantic artists who supported and liked his work for inspiration, these included John Linnell, Edward Calvert, Samuel Palmer, etc.
Here are some examples of his work:
Further along, Samuel Palmer took inspiration from William Blake in his work which led him to becoming one of the most influential landscape artists who focussed on romanticism. His art mainly included watercolours and the rich, calm colours of nature, similar to Blakes which can be seen throughout his work.
Here are some examples of his work:
This eventually fell into photography, which I will discuss below.
Romanticism photographers
By the 1900s, photographers such as Ansel Adams began to experiment with romanticism in photography. He photographed images of the American West, which he is most famous for and created the group of photographers we know today as f/64. He favoured dark contrasts in his work and focussed on the darker aspects of tones, which led to him creating Zonal System. Just as romanticism was used to show a movement within art, it can be seen in photography as Ansel Adams uses it to show environmental protection.
Here are some examples of his work:
Ansel Adams work also inspired the work of many other romantic landscape photographers such Fay Godwin, Don McCullin, Edward Weston, Galen Rowell, etc.
Galen Rowell focuses with colour mainly within his work with landscape photography. He captures the sunsets, sunrises and other various natural landscapes from different point of views.
Here are some examples of his work: