Romantische streken. Landschap en schilderkunst in de Duitse en Engelse Romantiek

Abstract

This multidisciplinary thesis attempts to connect political, art and landscape history on the basis of two historical cases in which, in the author's opinion, these areas influenced each other. It is assumed that political ideologies through the visual arts have had a strong influence on the vision on landscape that emerged in the nineteenth century and still exists today. It examines the way in which the difference in the representation of the natural landscape in Romanticist art influenced social interaction with the landscape during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first case to be elaborated on is Germany, in which the nationalist view on the Alps was influenced by the Romantic works of Caspar David Friedrich. The second case examines the influence that John Constable's works have had on the appreciation of the Flatford stream valley. The structure of the thesis is comparative. After the first chapter, in which the context of the artists and their political ideas is given, there are two chapters in which the German and English cases are elaborated on and compared with each other, respectively. The cases prove that a greater or lesser influence of politics through painting on landscape views that emerged in the nineteenth century cannot be ruled out. However, it is difficult to say whether this is a one-way street or an interaction in which the sites influenced each other.