This companion video outlines the history of the Romantic movement and illustrates the principles of Romantic and Classic art through the work of individual artists.

"The history of the German idealist oasis where discussions of revolution, literature, beliefs, romance, and concepts gave birth to the modern world"--

Goya is perhaps the most approachable of painters. His art, like his life, is an open book. He concealed nothing from his contemporaries, and offered his art to them with the same frankness. The entrance to his world is not barricaded with technical difficulties. He proved that if a man has the capacity to live and multiply his experiences, to fight and work, he can produce great art without classical decorum and traditional respectability. He was...

"A wild and unexpected journey through culture, science, philosophy, and religion to better understand the mercurial genius of William Blake"--

At fifteen, Turner was already exhibiting View of Lambeth. He soon acquired the reputation of an immensely clever watercolourist. A disciple of Girtin and Cozens, he showed in his choice and presentation of theme a picturesque imagination which seemed to mark him out for a brilliant career as an illustrator. He travelled, first in his native land and then on several occasions in France, the Rhine Valley, Switzerland and Italy. He soon began to look...

"Telling the fascinating story behind the pivotal role of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and its influence on so much of late seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century European visual culture, Gods and Heroes features 208 extraordinary art works from the École's collection. These include remarkable paintings by David, Fragonard, Ingres, Poussin, and Watteau, as well as drawings by Leonardo and Raphael"--

John Constable was the first English landscape painter to take no lessons from the Dutch. He is rather indebted to the landscapes of Rubens, but his real model was Gainsborough, whose landscapes, with great trees planted in well-balanced masses on land sloping upwards towards the frame, have a rhythm often found in Rubens. Constable's originality does not lie in his choice of subjects, which frequently repeated themes beloved by Gainsborough. Nevertheless,...

"From the best-selling author of The Invention of Nature comes an exhilarating story about a remarkable group of young rebels-poets, novelists, philosophers-who, through their epic quarrels, passionate love stories, heartbreaking grief, and radical ideas launched Romanticism onto the world stage, inspiring some of the greatest thinkers of the time. When did we begin to be as self-centered as we are today? At what point did we expect to have the right...