CHAPTER III
ROMANTICISM
IT is customary to apply the somewhat vague and nebulous term Romanticism to the singular efflorescence of European thought which occurred in the first half of the nineteenth century. The materialistic philosophy of the eighteenth century was superseded by an enthusiasm for mysticism, poetry, and religion; the rigid ideals of neo-classical art gave way to a thirst for uncouth sincerity, for "beautiful ugliness"; the cult of the line was supplanted by the unrestrained worship of colour. In literature, Schiller, Hoffmann, Byron, Shelley, Walter Scott, Victor Hugo, Musset, Th. Gautier eclipsed the glory of Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot; in music, Beethoven, Schubert and Weber overshadowed the austerely classical Glück, and the fascinating Haydn and Mozart; in painting, Géricault, Delacroix, Decamp, and the Nazarenes diverted the universal attention from infinite repetitions of the patterns of classical beauty.
In Russia, the Romantic movement found an unexpectedly loud echo, but this was confined almost com-
67
