Romantic Attitudes Toward Nature

In general Romantic artists adopted two contrasting attitudes toward nature but both are reactions to the dominant 18th century view. To Neoclassical thinkers nature was a rational, ordered cosmos operating by mechanical laws which Newton and other scientists had explained. It was "dead" nature--just matter that operated like a machine. The Romantics bring back wonder. Nature is alive.

One book had a tremendous influence on poets and painters: Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Inquiry Into The Origin Of Our Ideas Of the Sublime And Beautiful (1756). He makes the point that fear and amazement are important in our experience of nature. Those elements of nature which most evoke wonder and terror are the most sublime. Those aspects of nature which are the most mysterious and awe-inspiring and irrational are sublime. Burke cites in particular violent or dramatic aspects of nature: avalanches, earthquakes, volcanos, mountains, ravines, gorges. These aspects of nature are bigger than man, more powerful--man's reason can't comprehend them. Burke also saw ruins as sublime, especially when they were overgrown or located in dramatic spots. It sometimes even appears as if artists were taking Burke's treatise as a guide to what to write about or paint. We will look at some examples.

	Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797)
	An Eruption of Vesuvius, Seen from Portici 1774-76
	Volcanoes were seen as especially sublime. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries Vesuvius (in Italy) cooperated with artists who wished to depict it violent eruptions. Romantic literature as well used the volcano as a setting. In Percy Bysshe Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, one of the characters descends into the mouth of a volcano to meet with Demogorgon, Shelly's idea of Necessity--a sort of first principle, beyond God. Instead of going up on the mountain like Moses, Shelly's character goes down into the volcano--a perfect mysterious and sublime place.
	Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851)
	The Burning of the Houses of Parliament 1834
Fire, as an elemental natural force, was also depicted in paintings. Here the actual burning of the Houses of Parliament stimulated Turner's romantic imagination.
	John Martin (1789-1854)
	The Great Day of His Wrath 1851-3
	Here awe-inspiring natural disasters--earthquakes, avalanches, fires, and storms are combined with Biblical prophesy for a sublime rendering of the scene. Note the miniscule size of the people, Martin's means of emphasizing our pettiness in the face of the Cosmos and God. No neoclassical artist would have been interested in this theme.
Mountains are also very important to the Romantic imagination. Romantic poets verbalize what is only implicit in Romantic painting. For example, William Wordsworth describes a visionary experience atop a mountain--it is as if he feels God's presence. Shelly's Mont Blanc (in the Alps) imagines a Power and Unseen Presence dwelling there. Lord Byron wrote extensively abou the Alps and much of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein takes place in the Alps. Shelly says of the Alps that they "excited a sentiment of ecstatic wonder, not unallied to madness." No Neoclassical poet would have written about mountains! And wonder and ecstasy and madness are very far from Neoclassical Reason.
	Richard Wilson (1713-1782)
	Llyn-y-Cau, Cader Idris 1774
	This dramatic Welsh mountain scene includes a vast crater and soaring peaks; the tiny figures are dwarfed by the grandeur of the landscape.
	Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840)
	Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog c. 1818
	The German Romantic painter Friedrich primarily paints landscape scenes but usually these have symbolic meanings. According to textual sources, the man depicted here had recently died. Friedrich uses the mountain setting to symbolize this man's union with God and understanding (above the fog) after death.
	Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851)
	The Fall of an Avalanche in the Grisons 1810
	Turner's view of nature is not as optimistic as Friedrich's although he may also use it symbolically. He depicts an avalanche crushing a small mountain cabin. Perhaps this is his way of emphasizing man's insignificance in the face of cosmic mystery and power.
The sea too is an obsession with Romantic writers and artists. The sea for Romantics can be a place where decisive events occur; shore life is trivial. Think of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's romantic poem about the sailor who killed the albatros. The mariner's crewmates died as a result, and he's all all alone on the sea with water everywhere and not a drop to drink. This depressing solitude is quite different from being alone in a house. Or recall Melville's Moby Dick, where the sea provides a test--an important one on which salvation or damnation could depend. For visual artists too the sea is another example of the sublime, especially a stormy sea. Often this setting mirrors humankind's impotence in the face of overwhelming cosmic forces--not just natural forces.
	Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851)
	Snow Storm--Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth 1842
	Turner depicts here an elemental drama, with the boat almost swallowed up by the waves. (You can catch a glimpse of the paddle wheel.) Turner's use of the vortex as a compositional device adds to the violence of the scene.
	Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840)
	Arctic Shipwreck 1823-4
	Here too nature is overwhelming. One can scarcely distinguish the ship among the icebergs.
Ruins are also a popular romantic theme. They show the effects of time and change emphasizing that man's creations are transient in the face of powerful natural forces. See Shelley's Ozymandias. Some ruins even have a mysterious quality; one can imagine Girton's ruined castle as the setting for a Gothic novel, a popular romantic narrative form.
John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) Doorway of the Refectory, Rievaulx Abbey watercolour and pencil on paper, 1803	Thomas Girton (1775-1802) Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland 1797-9
Thus far we have seen examples of works which suggest that nature is an awesome, powerful force, often inimical to humankind. But some writers and artists see nature as a benevolent force filled with Divine love; they talk about a union between humans and nature, between us and the Divine. Like the more pessimistic view of nature, this optimistic view emphasizes that nature is not just mechanical or material. Some works by the British poet William Wordsworth and the American writer Thoreau suggest this pantheistic idea. The British artist John Constable painted landscapes almost exclusively, but rarely do they depict anything frightening or mysterious; instead, he painted the flat undramatic areas of England and the mills that his father owned. Constable seemed thoroughly at home in the natural world.
	John Constable (1776-1837)
	The Hay Wain 1821
	This painting depicts the "marriage" of human beings and nature that the poet Wordsworth often wrote about. It depicts their reciprocal interaction. The wagon is in the river which is part man-made canal; the buildings are overgrown with foliage and moss. The original sub-title "Noon" suggested the rhythms of nature by which human beings have lived for centuries. This is a vision of life as coherent, with both change and permanence and with a shared life in nature.
	John Constable (1776-1837)
	Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows 1831
	Cathedral, nature, rainbow and man--this landscape suggests a harmony in life and reminds us of the Romantic poet Coleridge's statement about the unity of man, God, and nature: "the one life which is in us and abroad."
Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867) Landscape with Boatman c. 1860	Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867) Oak Trees in the Gorge of Apremont c. 1850-52
The French painter Rousseau was the leader of a group of painters who went to the forest of Fontainebleu to paint "open air" in nature. His works have no terrifying vastness; rather he often centered figures in nature as part of a unified, harmonious world. He even once compared himself to a tree.
We have seen a number of works depicting nature about which symbolic meanings can be suggested. The German painter Caspar David Friedrich painted landscapes, sometimes with an overt symbolic and/or religious meaning. Often in his works the foreground represents this world, with backgrounds signifying the world to come (or the divine realm). Sometimes he paints gates or portals into this spiritual world. Often figures have their backs to the viewer as they yearn for the infinite. Test these generalizations against the two paintings below.
Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) Abbey in the Oakwood c. 1809-10	Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) Monk by the Sea c. 1850-52
Neoclassical artists tell us how to live in this world--a world usually defined as urban, social, governed by laws. Romantics are less interested in the city and in humans as social beings. For many the "City of Man" is not enough; they want to understand the "City of God," all those mysteries beyond human comprehension. Nature is often a vehicle embodying those mysteries.

Continue to Romantic Views of Humankind