Neo-romanticism

Neo-romanticism names the various returns of Romantic feeling that arose in opposition to realism, naturalism, and the avant-garde, from about 1840 down through the twentieth century. In British art history it means a loosely affiliated school of landscape painting that emerged around 1930 and lasted into the early 1950s - labeled 'neo-romantic' by the critic Raymond Mortimer in the New Statesman in March 1942. These painters looked back to William Blake and Samuel Palmer while absorbing lessons from Picasso, André Masson, and Pavel Tchelitchew, and their intensified, sometimes ominous landscapes answered the threat of invasion during the Second World War. Paul Nash, John Piper, Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore, and Ivon Hitchens initiated the movement; John Minton, John Craxton, Michael Ayrton, and Keith Vaughan formed the younger generation.

Defining characteristics

• Landscape charged with mood: haunted, visionary, or ominous terrain
• Strong contours and rhythmic line describing hedges, stones, and ploughed ground
• Dramatic weather and light: storms, dusk, moonlit clearing
• Ancient stones, ruins, and mythic undertones folded into nature
• Rich or dark romantic color replacing naturalist description
• Nature rendered as personal symbol rather than objective view

Key figures

• Paul Nash (1889-1946) — War artist whose chalk hills and wrecked aircraft fused landscape with symbol
• Graham Sutherland (1903-1980) — Turned thorns, crags, and twisted forms into a visionary landscape language
• John Piper (1903-1992) — Painted ruined churches and romantic architecture in dramatic dark color
• John Minton (1917-1957) — Younger neo-romantic draughtsman of haunted figure and landscape scenes

Example works

• Totes Meer — Paul Nash (1940-1941)
• Crucifixion — Graham Sutherland (1946)

Sources

• Neo-romanticism - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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