Romanticism & 19th Century
1800 – 1900 ADThe century of the individual. Beethoven shattered classical form, novelists mapped the interior life, and painters broke free of the academy. The era's great tension — between reason and feeling, tradition and revolution — produced the richest body of music, literature, and painting in Western history.
Literature & Philosophy
Visual Arts & Architecture
Music & Performing Arts
1800–1850
VisualFrancisco Goya1746 – 1828Third of May, Black Paintings — the first modern painterVisualJacques-Louis David1748 – 1825Oath of the Horatii, Death of Marat — painter of revolutionLiteratureGoethe1749 – 1832Faust, Wilhelm MeisterVisualWilliam Blake1757 – 1827Songs of Innocence, visionary paintings — poet-artistMusicBeethoven1770 – 18279 symphonies, late quartetsLiteratureHegel1770 – 1831Phenomenology of SpiritVisualCaspar David Friedrich1774 – 1840Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog — German Romantic landscapeVisualTurner1775 – 1851Light and atmosphereVisualJohn Constable1776 – 1837The Hay Wain — English landscape paintingMusicHammamizade İsmail Dede Efendi1778 – 1846Over 500 compositions — the Ottoman SchubertVisualJean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres1780 – 1867Grande Odalisque — line against colorLiteratureStendhal1783 – 1842The Red and the Black, The Charterhouse of ParmaMusicCarl Maria von Weber1786 – 1826Der Freischutz — German Romantic operaLiteratureSchopenhauer1788 – 1860The World as Will and RepresentationMusicGioachino Rossini1792 – 1868The Barber of Seville, William TellMusicSchubert1797 – 1828Lieder, Unfinished SymphonyMusicGaetano Donizetti1797 – 1848Lucia di Lammermoor — bel canto masterVisualDelacroix1798 – 1863Liberty Leading the PeopleLiteratureGiacomo Leopardi1798 – 1837Canti — Italy's greatest modern poetLiteratureBalzac1799 – 1850La Comedie humaineLiteratureAlexander Pushkin1799 – 1837Eugene Onegin — founder of Russian literatureMusicHector Berlioz1803 – 1869Symphonie fantastique — Romantic visionaryMusicFelix Mendelssohn1809 – 1847Violin Concerto, Midsummer Night's DreamLiteratureNikolai Gogol1809 – 1852Dead Souls, The Overcoat — Russian grotesqueMusicChopin1810 – 1849Piano poetry — nocturnes, balladesMusicRobert Schumann1810 – 1856Dichterliebe, piano cycles — Romantic dreamerMusicFranz Liszt1811 – 1886Piano transcendence — Sonata in B minorLiteratureCharles Dickens1812 – 1870Bleak House, Great Expectations — the Victorian imaginationLiteratureMikhail Lermontov1814 – 1841A Hero of Our Time — Russia's Byron
1850–1900
MusicWagner1813 – 1883Ring cycle, Tristan und IsoldeMusicVerdi1813 – 1901Aida, Otello, RequiemLiteratureKierkegaard1813 – 1855Either/Or, Fear and TremblingVisualJean-Francois Millet1814 – 1875The Angelus, The Gleaners — peasant dignityLiteratureIvan Turgenev1818 – 1883Fathers and Sons — the Russian generation gapVisualGustave Courbet1819 – 1877The Stone Breakers — founder of RealismLiteratureDostoevsky1821 – 1881Brothers Karamazov, Crime and PunishmentLiteratureFlaubert1821 – 1880Madame BovaryLiteratureCharles Baudelaire1821 – 1867Les Fleurs du Mal — inventor of modern poetryMusicCesar Franck1822 – 1890Symphony in D minor — organ mysticMusicAnton Bruckner1824 – 18969 symphonies — cathedrals in soundMusicBedrich Smetana1824 – 1884Ma Vlast — Czech national composerLiteratureTolstoy1828 – 1910War and Peace, Anna KareninaLiteratureHenrik Ibsen1828 – 1906A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler — father of modern dramaVisualAlbert Bierstadt1830 – 1902Among the Sierra Nevada — the American sublimeVisualEdouard Manet1832 – 1883Olympia, Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe — father of ImpressionismMusicBrahms1833 – 18974 symphonies, German RequiemVisualEdgar Degas1834 – 1917Ballet dancers, racehorses — the eye of modern lifeVisualJames McNeill Whistler1834 – 1903Arrangement in Grey and Black — art for art's sakeMusicGeorges Bizet1838 – 1875CarmenVisualCézanne1839 – 1906Post-Impressionism, proto-CubismMusicModest Mussorgsky1839 – 1881Boris Godunov, Pictures at an ExhibitionVisualMonet1840 – 1926Impression, Sunrise — ImpressionismMusicTchaikovsky1840 – 1893Swan Lake, symphoniesVisualRodin1840 – 1917The Thinker, Gates of HellMusicDvorak1841 – 1904New World SymphonyVisualPierre-Auguste Renoir1841 – 1919Bal du moulin de la Galette — Impressionist joyLiteratureNietzsche1844 – 1900Thus Spoke ZarathustraMusicRimsky-Korsakov1844 – 1908Scheherazade — orchestral coloristVisualIlya Repin1844 – 1930Barge Haulers on the Volga — Russian realismMusicGabriel Faure1845 – 1924Requiem, nocturnes — French refinementVisualPaul Gauguin1848 – 1903Where Do We Come From? — Tahitian visionVisualVincent van Gogh1853 – 1890Starry Night, Sunflowers — painting as spiritual urgencyMusicEdward Elgar1857 – 1934Enigma Variations, cello concertoVisualGeorges Seurat1859 – 1891A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — pointillismMusicHugo Wolf1860 – 1903Morike-Lieder — the Lied's last masterLiteratureAnton Chekhov1860 – 1904The Cherry Orchard, short stories — master of the unsaidVisualToulouse-Lautrec1864 – 1901Moulin Rouge posters — Montmartre chronicler