Nature inspired the Romantics, and they painted landscapes infused with feeling. John Constable painted scenes of Britain's rural countryside, a nostalgic setting popular among Romantic poets. Dramatic skylines with clouds, sunlight and shadows dominate his 6-foot long canvases. Constable and other Romantic artists such as France's Theodore Gericault painted monumental landscapes to convey the power of nature and the value of the genre. Constable applied brushstrokes of pure color to depict sunlight illuminating the trees, fields and ponds. His contemporary, J. M. W. Turner, took the technique further. Turner painted slashes of contrasting colors to convey the effects of a warm sun or a glowing moon. His paintings depict nature as source of inspiring beauty and destructive power.
The passionate politics of the Romantic era were a natural subject for painters. Eugène Delacroix and Theodore Gericault responded to France's struggles for freedom huge paintings that portrayed scenes of rebellion and incidents that showed the human cost of a corrupt government. Fast sweeps of color stressed the chaos, urgency and emotion of their subjects. Unlike the neoclassic painters who portrayed heroic moments in battle, the Romantics triggered emotional responses in viewers with depictions of the destruction and death of war. Francisco Goya's painting of an execution of Spanish freedom fighters highlights the terrified expression of the central figure in the line of fire. Goya portrayed his victim with outstretched arms, a pose often compared to Christ's crucifixion.
Romantic portraiture focused on the internal qualities and emotions of subjects. Painters used light and shadows to highlight facial features that expressed feelings such as uncertainty, contentment, fear and resolve. Painters often conveyed movement with wind-tossed hair and fluttering drapery. Portraits cometimes captured a momentary gesture or expression. French Romanticist Anne-Loius Girodet painted some subjects from a lower angle to create the impression they were leaning towards viewers. Romanticism valued the individual, and painters found unique stories and perceptions in the faces of generals, diplomats, maids and farmers. Theodore Gericault painted a series of portraits of patients at an insane asylum.
German painters who embraced the Romantic movement developed a pictorial language that emphasized spiritual and mystical experiences. Germany's most well-known Romantic painter, Caspar David Friedrich, created landscapes infused with mist, moonlight and other ethereal atmospheric effects. Gothic ruins, gnarled dead trees and other symbols that suggest the transience and vanity of earthly life run throughout his painting. Friedrich saw nature as reflection of God. Some of his most famous painting show one or two small figures in a dark, shadowed foreground set against an illuminated and brightly colored background.