Beginning of Romanticism

In the late 18th to the mid 19th century a new Romantic attitude began to bring life to culture and many art works in Western civilization. It started as an artistic and intellectual movement that emphasized a revulsion against established values like social order and religion. Romanticism exalted individualism, subjectivism, irrationalism, imagination, emotions and nature emotion over reason and senses over intellect. Since they were in revolt against the orders, they favored the revival of potentially unlimited number of styles such as anything that aroused them.
Romantic artists were fascinated by the nature, the genius, their passions and inner struggles, their moods, mental potentials, the heroes. They investigated human nature and personality, the folk culture, the national and ethnic origins, the medieval era, the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the occult, the diseased, and even satanic. Romantic artist had a role of an ultimate egoistic creator, with the spirit above strict formal rules and traditional procedures. He had imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth.