The course examines the ways in which Romantic artists sought to interpret human action during the period of the “dual revolution” and the ensuing bourgeois-capitalist transformation of society. To this end, it explores the work of some of the most representative painters of the nineteenth century, including Francisco de Goya, Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Géricault, William Blake, John Constable, J. M. W. Turner, Caspar David Friedrich, Philipp Otto Runge, and their successors (Carl Gustav Carus, Karl Eduard Blechen, and Adrian Ludwig Richter), as well as the Nazarenes, artists associated with the Biedermeier movement, and later Naturalist painters such as Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, and Adolph Menzel.

After the successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

•    understand the ways in which nineteenth-century artists perceived and responded to the phenomenon of modernity;
•    analyze issues related to intellectual reflection and artistic practice;
•    critically compare local traditions and the cultures of different communities;
•    evaluate the relationship between artistic production and the broader social, political, and cultural transformations of the modern era.