Final answer:
Romanticism in art is a movement that values emotion, imagination, and a deep reverence for nature over the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the mechanical industrial age. It emerged in the late 18th century and is characterized by expressive and dramatic use of color, subject, and brushwork.
Step-by-step explanation:
Romanticism is an artistic movement that arose in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as a response to the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Prioritizing emotion and imagination over rationality and logic, Romanticism embraced themes of nature, the ordinary person, the exotic, the ancient, and the supernatural. This movement is characterized by a deep appreciation of the power and beauty of the natural world, as well as the recognition of an intrinsic connection between humanity and nature.
Artists of the Romantic period believed in the concept of the genius artist whose work was driven by creative impulses rather than formal training or education. Their artworks aimed to evoke profound emotional responses through the use of bold colors, dramatic subject matter, and energetic brushwork. Notable Romantic artists include Delacroix, Gericault, Turner, and Blake, who portrayed a range of subjects with a sense of emotionality and spontaneity. One of the landmarks of Romanticism in painting is the valorization of nature's grandeur and the human spirit's response to it, as seen in works like Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich.