Rhine romanticism
Encyclopedia
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, by the end of the 18th century until the late 19th century and was continued in all forms of art expression.
Schlegel's travel notes as a significant contribution
In response to the nascent industrialization with their perceived negative side effects, artists and writers turned to nature and the past. Friedrich Schlegel describes his impressions of a journey along the Rhine in 1806: "For me only those areas are beautiful, which are usually called the rough and wild, since only these are exalted, only exalted areas can be beautiful, only these excite the thoughts of nature. [...] But nothing is able to embellish and to increase the impression as much as the traces of human courage in the ruins of nature, bold castles atop wild rocks - monuments of the time of human heroes harking back to those higher heroic days of nature.Lord Byron made the Rhine area enormously popular in England in 1818 with his verse narrative,Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe". The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks...
. The German poet Adelheid of Stolterfoth created numerous Rhine poems. In the visual arts William Turner
William Turner
William Turner MA was an English divine and reformer, a physician and a natural historian. He studied medicine in Italy, and was a friend of the great Swiss naturalist, Conrad Gessner...
drew attention to the Rhine, especially in England, with his paintings, which were the result of several cruises on the river. The most popular romantic Rhine views, the reproductions in varying formats, such as postcard
Postcard
A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope....
s spreads were derived from Nikolai von Astudin.
From a tourist stopover to a tourist destination
The Rhine GorgeRhine Gorge
The Rhine Gorge is a popular name for the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, a 65 km section of the River Rhine between Koblenz and Bingen in Germany...
was depicted by late 18th century travellers like the Italian Aurelio de' Giorgi Bertola (first travelogue in the romantic style) in 1795 and the British John Gardnor (etchings), who both traveled the gorge in 1787. In 1802, Clemens Brentano
Clemens Brentano
Clemens Brentano, or Klemens Brentano was a German poet and novelist.-Overview:He was born in Ehrenbreitstein, near Koblenz, Germany. His sister was Bettina von Arnim, Goethe's correspondent. His father's family was of Italian descent. He studied in Halle and Jena, afterwards residing at...
and Ludwig Achim von Arnim
Ludwig Achim von Arnim
Ludwig Achim von Arnim was a German poet and novelist born in Berlin.-Life:Arnim was descended from a Prussian noble family. His father was Joachim Erdmann von Arnim , associated with the Prussian court and, among other roles, active as the Director of the Berlin theater...
toured the valley, which was developing from a region one passed through on the Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
to Italy into a first rank tourist destination in its own right.
After Switzerland, with its rugged mountain valleys, the rocky the Upper Middle Rhine Valley
Rhine Gorge
The Rhine Gorge is a popular name for the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, a 65 km section of the River Rhine between Koblenz and Bingen in Germany...
with its many ruins became a "must" for tourists. Many princes and wealthy individuals began to rebuild the castles; foremost among these was the Prussian royal house, which was building at multiple locations simultaneously. The most outstanding work of the Romantic Rhine is Stolzenfels Castle
Stolzenfels Castle
Stolzenfels Castle is a castle near Koblenz on the Rhine, Germany.Finished in 1259, Stolzenfels was used to protect the toll station at the Rhine, where the ships, back then were the main transport for goods, had to stop and pay toll...
, built by King Frederick William IV of Prussia
Frederick William IV of Prussia
|align=right|Upon his accession, he toned down the reactionary policies enacted by his father, easing press censorship and promising to enact a constitution at some point, but he refused to enact a popular legislative assembly, preferring to work with the aristocracy through "united committees" of...
in Koblenz
Koblenz
Koblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck and its monument are situated.As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the...
. Even with absolutely secular constructions, such as tunnel entrances, were built in Gothic style during the Romantic and neo-Romantic periods.
Printing popular imagery
Interestingly, the popular image of the romantic Rhine in the first half of the 19th Century was not derived from paintings, but almost exclusively from the printsPrintmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
. Aquatint
Aquatint
Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching.Intaglio printmaking makes marks on the matrix that are capable of holding ink. The inked plate is passed through a printing press together with a sheet of paper, resulting in a transfer of the ink to the paper...
s, lithographs and engravings illustrated travel books and were published as series of postcards. Between 1820 and 1830 at least 12 companies published their own series of postcards, each with separately produced imagery.
The British were leaders in the field, with their steel engraving
Steel engraving
Steel engraving, is a commercial engraving technique for printing illustrations, based on steel instead of copper. It has been rarely used in artistic printmaking, although was much used for reproductions in the 19th century. Steel engraving was introduced in 1792 by Jacob Perkins , an American...
process, which was patented in London in 1826, which replaced the older copper engraving technology and enabled accurate representations and long print runs. At the time, William Tombleson
William Tombleson
William Tombleson was an English topographical and architecture artist, illustrator, copper and steel engraver, writer and printmaker, based in London.-Life and works:...
provided the best templates, and 50 engravers turned these into 68 representations of the Middle Rhine in "Views of the Rhine", first published in 1832.
A year later "Traveling Sketches" by Clarkson Stanfield was published. The steel engraving with a view on Bingen
Bingen am Rhein
Bingen am Rhein is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.The settlement’s original name was Bingium, a Celtic word that may have meant “hole in the rock”, a description of the shoal behind the Mäuseturm, known as the Binger Loch. Bingen was the starting point for the...
and the Rhine-Nahe corner from the other side of the Rhine first appeared in this publication. The English artist skillfully reinforces the effect of the view on the city with the backlit Basilica
Basilica
The Latin word basilica , was originally used to describe a Roman public building, usually located in the forum of a Roman town. Public basilicas began to appear in Hellenistic cities in the 2nd century BC.The term was also applied to buildings used for religious purposes...
and the reflecting surface of the water. The geographic reality was, however, largely sacrificed on the altar of the Rhine romanticism. The viewer is looking due south and at this latitude, one rarely sees a low sun or a sunset in this direction. Despite these flaws, this attractive view is one of the best known and most copied vistas
Vistas
Vistas may also refer to:*Vistas High School Program, an alternative public high school program based in unincorporated Harris County, Texas, United States*Victoria Vistas, a former Canadian soccer club...
of Bingen in the 19th century.
Among the artistically and technically very sophisticated publications of this time is the Verdute series, depicted the whole course of the Rhine, published by to the Swiss publisher and painter Johann Ludwig Bleuler
Johann Ludwig Bleuler
Johann Ludwig Bleuler was a Swiss painter.-References:*This article was initially translated from the German Wikipedia....
around 1827. Bleuler's major work, "Voyage aux bords du Rhin pittoresque et de la Suisse", appeared in 1845.
In 2002, UNESCO declared the Upper Middle Rhine Valley
Rhine Gorge
The Rhine Gorge is a popular name for the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, a 65 km section of the River Rhine between Koblenz and Bingen in Germany...
a World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
.
- The pictures 4-7 are old colored engravings by Christian Meichelt based on works by Johann Adolf von Lasinsky.