Varieties of Romantic Experience

This lavishly illustrated book considers Romanticism as a truly international phenomenon by bringing together for the first time nearly two hundred British, French, German, Danish, and Dutch drawings from the outstanding collection of Charles Ryskamp. Taking its cue from David Wilkie’s appeal in 1824 “to show that the arts are cosmopolitan and that all national prejudice is foreign to them,” the book demonstrates the diversity inherent in the phenomenon called...
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This lavishly illustrated book considers Romanticism as a truly international phenomenon by bringing together for the first time nearly two hundred British, French, German, Danish, and Dutch drawings from the outstanding collection of Charles Ryskamp. Taking its cue from David Wilkie’s appeal in 1824 “to show that the arts are cosmopolitan and that all national prejudice is foreign to them,” the book demonstrates the diversity inherent in the phenomenon called Romanticism; it also highlights the common concerns and approaches shared by British and Continental artists. Alongside important British works by artists such as J.M.W. Turner, Cornelius Varley, William Blake, and Henry Fuseli, the book also includes drawings by key Continental artists including Caspar David Friedrich, Camille Corot, Eugène Delacroix, and Edgar Degas, and works by Danish Golden Age artists, including C. W. Eckersberg, Christen Købke, and Johan Thomas Lundbye. Truly comprehensive in scope, the book helps to explore the varieties of Romantic experience and the place of British art in a Continental milieu.