Romantic Art

The best way to describe Romanticism is as a reaction to Enlightenment ideas. The Enlightenment ideas were seemingly great, but they were only applied to the upperclass. The Romantic ideas were the people's answer to the upperclass and their Enlightenment ideas. Romantics focused on ideas such as their awe of nature, emotions, the inmportance of the individual, the grotesque and horrific aspects of life and an interest in the irrational. The following painting is called The Abduction of Rebecca. Painted by Eugene Delacroix in 1846, it depicts a scene from a popular book during the time period when a woman is carried off by two slaves who had long admired her. It contains many of the aspects often seen in Romanticism.

Focus on the individual can be seen in the section outlined in yellow. These people are the aforementioned slaves and the women they are kidnapping. They are meant to be the focus of the painting. An observer's eyes are drawn first to them rather than the people in the background. The meaning of the painting was to tell the story of these few people rather than the less important characters.
Outlined in green is a horse. He's tossing his mane has a wild, aggressive appearance. This is an example of the Romantics' awe of nature. They acknowledge that creatures like this horse remain wild at heart and they can't be tamed.
The section outlined in red shows a fire. This represents the romanticism acknowledgement of the grotesque and horrific aspects of life. A cast is burning in the background. People are probably dying. If not, they're losing their home.
Finally, the orange sections shows people fleeing the burning castle. This shows the emotional aspect of Romanticism. They are probably very afraid, angry and sad, all at the same time.