We seem to be looking at the effects and the contents of the woman's dream at the same time.

A mysterious black mare with white eyes and flaring nostrils appears behind her, entering the scene through lush, red curtains. Romantic painters combined the ideal with the particular, imbuing their paintings with a call to spiritual renewal that would usher in an age of freedom and liberties not yet seen.ДЇuseli's strange and macabre painting depicts a ravished woman, draped across a divan with a small, hairy incubus sitting on top of her, staring out menacingly at the viewer. Emphasizing local folklore, traditions, and landscapes, Romanticists provided the visual imagery that further spurred national identity and pride.

Romanticism was closely bound up with the emergence of newly found nationalism that swept many countries after the American Revolution.

While some artists emphasized humans at one with and a part of nature, others portrayed nature's power and unpredictability, evoking a feeling of the sublime - awe mixed with terror - in the viewer. Works based on close observation of the landscape as well as the sky and atmosphere elevated landscape painting to a new, more respectful level.

In many countries, Romantic painters turned their attention to nature and plein air painting, or painting out of doors.

As the French poet Charles Baudelaire described it, 'Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor in exact truth, but in a way of feeling.' The preoccupation with the hero and the genius translated to new views of the artist as a brilliant creator who was unburdened by academic dictate and tastes. Artists began exploring various emotional and psychological states as well as moods.

Romanticism embraced individuality and subjectivity to counteract the excessive insistence on logical thought.

Painters began using current events and atrocities to shed light on injustices in dramatic compositions that rivaled the more staid Neoclassical history paintings accepted by national academies.

In part spurred by the idealism of the French Revolution, Romanticism embraced the struggles for freedom and equality and the promotion of justice.

Additionally, in an effort to stem the tide of increasing industrialization, many of the Romanticists emphasized the individual's connection to nature and an idealized past.

Reacting against the sober style of Neoclassicism preferred by most countries' academies, the far reaching international movement valued originality, inspiration, and imagination, thus promoting a variety of styles within the movement. Romanticist practitioners found their voices across all genres, including literature, music, art, and architecture. Its ideals of the creative, subjective powers of the artist fueled avant-garde movements well into the 20 th century. Romanticism celebrated the individual imagination and intuition in the enduring search for individual rights and liberty. The artists emphasized that sense and emotions - not simply reason and order - were equally important means of understanding and experiencing the world. At the end of the 18 th century and well into the 19 th, Romanticism quickly spread throughout Europe and the United States to challenge the rational ideal held so tightly during the Enlightenment.

Romantic notion definition