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Movement — c. 1780–1850
Romanticism
A European movement that elevated emotion, nature, and the sublime over Enlightenment reason — finding beauty in storms, ruins, and the darker reaches of the human imagination.
571 works across 5 artists in the NGA collection
Search Romanticism worksRomanticism was a reaction against the cool rationalism of the Enlightenment. Its painters sought the overwhelming, the mysterious, and the emotionally raw — Turner dissolving ships into storms, Delacroix unleashing colour as pure sensation, Goya documenting the horrors of war with a truthfulness that bordered on the unbearable. William Blake operated in his own visionary register entirely, producing illuminated books that fused poetry and image into a private mythology. The NGA's Romantic holdings are among its deepest — Turner alone accounts for 78 works.
J.M.W. Turner
78 works
Eugène Delacroix
67 works
Francisco Goya
149 works
William Blake
274 works
!["And Saul Said unto David, Go, and the Lord be with Thee" [recto] by William Blake](https://pub-195741b7cda1474594e199ae97fdd720.r2.dev/thumbnails/4869.webp)
![A Crouching Figure Holding a Shield [verso] by William Blake](https://pub-195741b7cda1474594e199ae97fdd720.r2.dev/thumbnails/33975.webp)
![A Resurrection Scene (The Gambols of Ghosts) [recto] by William Blake](https://pub-195741b7cda1474594e199ae97fdd720.r2.dev/thumbnails/4873.webp)
Caspar David Friedrich
3 works
Collection data via NGA Open Access (CC0)
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