Landscapes

Landscape photography commonly involves daylight photography of natural features of land, sky and waters, at a distance—though some landscapes may involve subjects in a scenic setting nearby, even close-up, and sometimes at night.

Ansel Adams

Romanticism

Romanticism in art and photography is about focusing on strong emotions, nature, and individual experience. It highlights beauty, imagination, and sometimes the mysterious or exotic. Think of dramatic landscapes, powerful moments, and emotional expressions. It’s less about strict realism and more about capturing the feeling of a scene. It involves romanticising certain things like nature or a certain lifestyle. For example, in photography, you might romanticise a landscape by capturing the best scenes only and perhaps putting a feeling of otherworldyness/ nostalgia. When you romanticise something, you make it seem better than it really is; in a way, everything humans think about is romanticised: the grass is always greener on the other side. An example of life being romanticised in our minds is thinking about the life of being an underground artist in New York (think Basquiat) is highly romanticised and the image of it looks really appealing/romantic, but in reality it is quite a hard life to live, and that feeling of romanticism that you get when looking at images isn’t necessarily how that person living that life might be experiencing it.​

romantisicim fact file

• Romanticism placed particular emphasis on emotion, horror, awe, terror and apprehension. Emotion and feeling were central not only to the creation of the work, but also in how it should be read.​
• Romanticism can also have a link with landscape and nature . Landscapes became subjects in their own right and were often charged with symbolism. For romantic artists, nature is a source of inspiration and escape, a refuge from the tumult of the modern world.​
• Who: artist William Blake and the Spanish painter Francisco Goya have been given the name “fathers” of Romanticism by various scholars for their works’ emphasis on subjective vision, the power of the imagination.​
• What: an artistic movement marked by the emphasis on imagination and emotions ​
• Where: romantisicm started In western Europe around the 18th century at this time the artistic and cultural movement was being revived (Neoclassicism)​
• How: With its emphasis on the imagination and emotion, Romanticism emerged as a response to the disillusionment with the Enlightenment values of reason and order in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789.​
• Why: Romanticism was born as a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. The Romanticist movement celebrated rebellion, sensation, emotion, subjectivity, and individuality and it rejected tradition, reason, rationality, and authority.

The importance of the British painters JMW Turner and John Constable

English romantic painter and water colour specialist , known for is romantic paintings that portray colourful imagery and imaginative landscapes. Joseph Mallord William born 23rd of April 1775 inspired modern art by incorporating a view of impossibility into his paintings by inviting unrealistic colouring and faded scenery to give a sense of romanticism

Sublime

• In the critical literature, “the Romantic sublime” refers to the mind’s transcendence of a natural and/or social world that finally cannot fulfill its desire. Revealed in the moment of the sublime is that the mind is not wholly of the world, but this revelation may be triggered by a particular setting in the world.​
• The sublime as defined by The Tate is : “Theory developed by Edmund Burke in the mid eighteenth century, where he defined sublime art as art that refers to a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation.”​
• The sublime is in most creative subject areas; photography, fine art, film, writing, poetry and many more.