Romanticism is a large-scale ideological and artistic trend in the culture and art of the 19th century, which replaced the cold rationalism of neoclassicism and Enlightenment. Romantics have elevated the importance of fantasy, emotions, feelings, and mental tossing (Steiner & Foster, 2020). The era of heroes with robust, bold, contradictory, and sometimes rebellious characters has begun in literature and art. These are figures like Byron and Prometheus, who either proclaim man’s greatness or become vulnerable in the hands of fate while passions overcome them. They embark on wanderings, climb the barricades, raise the banner of freedom, and do not know peace.
Romanticism in painting rejected the rationalism of classicism and reflected the attention to the depths of the human personality characteristic of the philosophy of the Romantics. It grew up on the emotional soil of sentimentalism, but while preserving lyricism and poetry, it replaced sentimental sensitivity with dramatic manifestations of nature. Therefore, it is not necessary to associate this direction with religious motives – instead, with the romance of distant wanderings, travels, mysterious discoveries, and even revolutionary struggle. Unlike sentimentalism, there is no tenderness and tearfulness in Romanticism – it is the philosophy of the brave and strong.
The characters in the paintings of romantic artists are similar to the heroes of literary novels: sensitive, often enigmatic, sometimes riotous, sometimes cruel, and often lonely. Many creators were immersed in studying the dark sides of human nature (Steiner & Foster, 2020). Hence, there was the interest of artists in the night, thunderstorms, and mysticism. To some extent, the romantic masters even returned to Baroque aesthetics with its dramatic intensity, passion, dynamism, chaos, and mysticism.
The main feature of Romanticism as a direction in literature lies in the main conflicts and ideas. The main idea of almost every work is the constant movement of the literary hero in physical space. This fact reflects the confusion of the hero’s soul, his flowing, continuous reflections, and at the same time, changes in the surrounding reality.
As in any artistic direction, Romanticism has its conflicts. The whole concept in this direction is based on the complex relationship of the protagonist of the work with the outside world. The main character is egocentric, but at the same time, they rebel against the vulgar, base, material components of reality (Steiner & Foster, 2020). This is manifested both in the actions and in the thoughts and ideas of a literary character. The most striking examples are the following characters of Romanticism – Childe Harold, the main character of Byron’s work Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage , and Pechorin – the main character of Lermontov’s work The Hero of Our Time . Thus, at the heart of any piece of the direction of Romanticism lies the gap between reality and the idealized world, and this gap has rather sharp edges.
An example of contemporary romanticism is the film “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” The main focus is on the 16-year-old boy Charlie, who is surrounded by typical problems for his age: school parties, cool friends, relationships, unrequited love, drugs and alcohol, and teenage depression. Like any romantic character, Charlie struggles with the outer reality that he is not willing to accept. The major romantic idea of the movie is that the protagonist is that Charlie matures, and his view of the world, experience, and environment changes. Therefore, despite the fact that modern films can hardly be viewed from the point of view of romanticism, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” is a worthy example of a romantic work of art.