what is important to know is the age of enlighten witch is a period in Europe in the 17-18th century when many writers and thinkers began to question established beliefs, this could be religion where people started to question it and wanted more of an scientific proof of it. Soon after that there was the age of romanticism which was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. these 2 ideas were opposing each other, one the Enlightenment thinkers would believe in science and rationality, where as Romantics “favoured depicting emotions such as trepidation, horror, and wild untamed nature.”

Joseph Mallord William Turner RA, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings. His work was one of the early beginnings of the romantic era, that focused on the romanticism of nature, which he represents in his work.

the beginning evidence of romanticism:

1762-a swiss philosopher Jean-Jaques Rousseau publishes a book about the raising of children, which praised the wisdom, spontaneity and natural goodness of little children. it contains diatribes against the oppressive world of adults. He publishes this book during very sientific times when people would be drawn to logistics, but against this he emphasises the qualities a child has and glamrises their thinking, creativity ,pureness and outside of adult discipline

1770- A 17 year old poet Thomas Chatterton commits suicide because no one want to publish his poems, he becomes this idea of a sensitive, doomed artist that is rejected by the cruel society.

1774- ab author Geothe publishes a love story which is about the unconditional love one has for a married woman, where he kills himself and is labelled passionate and moved by love. this book becomes the most popular novel of the generation and gets a lot of recognition. this made people change the way they would think , they would side with outpouring of feeling rather then traditional rational thinking. making people believe that following your heart is more important and the outcomes of it are far less important.

There is also the importance of the sublime which is really important to understand and it goes in pair with romanticism. The word sublime that we use today means “of very great excellence or beauty” but in its history, it has a deeper meaning, reaching to something truly extraordinary, an ideal that artists have long pursued. This is pursued by artist to create awe and wonder by their artwork, throughout years there were different periods of time which each had specific generalised want and needs from the artwork being produced, as times change their needs did and so did the artwork. These are the key periods of time of the sublime: The Baroque sublime, The Romantic sublime, The Victorian sublime, The modern sublime, The contemporary sublime. Where this is is important is the link of romanticism and the sublime in a time period called the romantic sublime.

How it all started was when Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry (1757) connected the sublime with experiences of awe, terror and danger. He saw nature as the most sublime object, which created strong sensations, and emotion. This link to landscape photography today, as the landscape usually produced created awe but terror, by being dramatic yet beautiful, these photographs/artworks are so successful when they create a sublime feeling in a person, as then it moves the person and is more likely to create a certain feeling in one then other images that don’t have what a sublime image may create. Those sublime images may be:

His perception influenced a lot of artists, where they would look at nature in a different way, they would get inspired by nature, wanting to create artwork, usually paintings at the time, however this ideal of romantic sublime till this day inspires people. Because now there are much more different ways of creating artwork, like through photography, so many people explore these different areas, without knowing or simply not labelling it as romantic sublime, however this idea has lived on till this day .

There are many artists that have their work related to  The Sublime, some of being :