Dbq Essay On Romanticism

1228 Words5 Pages

During the period from 1760’s to the 1910’s, the European intellectual viewpoints have evolved over time starting with the Enlightenment, which sparked in the French Revolution. Equality and education became very important to the Europeans along with theories on human behavior and reason. Winding time forward, Romanticism was a movement in the arts and literature that emphasized passion, emotion of the individual, and admiration of nature. This praising of the individual transitioned to imperialism era, which was the colonization by the European powers, USA, and Empire of Japan. Every nation was in a competition to take over the natives’ land first. European views on the non-European people reflected on the Enlightenment, which believed in hope for educating the …show more content…

The book “ Atala” is about a spanish man who raised a native to become modern and civilized. Even after being taught and mannered, the native wants to go back to nature to live in the wild. The Spanish man himself admires his love for nature because he wishes himself he could join him.(Document 3) In addition, the painting “Barbaric Tales” by Gauguin shows two polynesian woman looking beautiful with flowers in their hair in a forest. A European man is in the painting too but he is studying and admiring the natives, expect he looks evil and unproportional. The European admiring the two native women is displaying the idea of the noble savage. Romanticism has changed the view and made the natives the ones the Europeans aspired to be. The purpose of the European man looking evil and having claws in the painting is to show the Europeans as the real savages. Also, it is showing how the polynesian women were representing every native in the Romantic era. They are looked upon as beautiful and worth admiring to Europeans due to their sense of strong emotions to nature. (Document