Romantic Art and 18th Century Term Paper

The exoticism and escapism of Romantic Art is manifest by the focus in the features of Napoleon on the bright or the wider scenes of the battlefield. However, it is the works of Francisco Goya that perhaps most perfectly epitomizes the intense individualism and emotion of Romantic art. Even the titles of Goya's works like "Yo lo Vi (This I saw)" and "Para Eso Yo Nacido (for this I was born) places the artist's individual consciousness squarely in the center of the meaning of the painting. There is no attempt at objectivity, and no apology for the subjective nature of the representation.

The Third of May" although a political work, is not of a noble or significant figure, or a beautiful human body like "Marat." Most of the painting has a hazy quality, as if seen through the night, except for the illumination of the victims. It shows the ugliness of the shooting of what is to occur without apology, as the French massacre innocent Spanish civilians. The nakedness of the chest of the central figure shows the nakedness of the crime, as the only bright light in the painting turns the focus on the man's flesh. Goya's "The Colossus" even takes the viewer completely out of the realm of reality and portrays a large, hulking and almost demonic creature. However, although it does not specifically refer to any political struggle, there may be an allegorical element of protest to it, much like "The Third of May." Unlike the celebratory works of the French artists, the Spanish Goya shows ordinary human beings in the clutch of what is awful, rather than simply what is great, grand, or epic in scale, and his focus is on the common folk, rather than the major actors of history like Marat and Napoleon. In Goya, the terrible aftereffects of Revolution are seen, as well as revolutionary glories and celebrations of leaders and individual historical actors.