It also knows that small compliments and reassurances are of huge benefit to us, given our natural frailty and insecurity. It understands that ‘being yourself’ is not something we should ever seek to be around anyone we care for. In social life, Classicism counsels politeness as a way of keeping our true selves at bay. It loves, but does not idealise, the young. Classicism has a high regard for domestic life it sees apparently minor practical details as deeply worthy of care and effort it doesn’t think it would be degrading to tidy the laundry cupboard or do the household accounts because these are modest points at which our own routines intersect with the great themes of life.Ĭlassicism understands that we need rules and, in the education of children, it trusts in the setting of boundaries. It knows that ecstasy cannot last, and that the basis of all good relationships must be tolerance and mutual sympathy. In love, it counsels a gracious acceptance of the ‘madness’ inside each partner. In response, Classicism seeks constantly – via culture – to correct the failings of our minds.Ĭlassicism is wary of our instinctive longing for perfection. The Classical attitude knows that our emotions can frequently over-power our better insights that we repeatedly misunderstand ourselves and others and that we are never far from folly, harm and error. The huge task of our age is to unwind Romantic attitudes and replace them with an outlook that might be called – for the sake of symmetry and historical accuracy – Classical.Ī Classical view of life is founded upon an intense, pessimistic awareness of the frailties of human nature and on a suspicion of unexamined instinct. They push us in decisively unhelpful directions they incite unreal hopes, make us impatient with ourselves, discourage introspection, blind us to the dangers of obeying instinct in love and work, turn us away from our realities and lead us to lament the normal conditions of existence. Romanticism has its distinctive wisdom, but its central messages have, in many areas, become a catastrophic liability in our lives. The supreme symbol of the Romantic attitude is Eug è ne Delacroix’s legendary painting Liberty leading the People.Īn invitation to Romanticism Eug è ne Delacroix, Liberty leading the people, 1830 These things are of course (it admits) necessary but they are (as we tellingly put it) ‘un-Romantic’ miserable impositions forced upon us by the unfortunate conditions of existence. The Romantic attitude disdains organisation, punctuality, clarity, bureaucracy, industry, commerce and routine. It likes revolution rather than evolution. It is offended by what is humdrum and ordinary and longs for the special, the rare, the distinctive and the exclusive. The Romantic spirit pits itself against analysis it believes there is such a thing as ‘thinking too much’ (rather than just thinking badly). It likes what is new rather than recurring. Romanticism hates institutions and venerates the brave outsider who fights heroically against the status quo.

It assumes that children are pure and good, and that it is only ever society that corrupts them. In social life, Romanticism argues against politeness and convention and in favour of frankness and plain-speaking. In relation to work, the Romantic spirit leads to a faith in spontaneous ‘genius’ and a trust that all talented people will experience the pull of a vocation. It also leads to a veneration of sex as the ultimate expression of love (a position which turns adultery from a problem into a disaster). In relation to love, this inspires a belief that passionate emotions will reliably guide us to a partner who can provide us with fifty years or so of intimate happiness. It is hard to go far on almost any issue without encountering a dominant Romantic position.Īt the core of the Romantic attitude is a trust in feeling and instinct as supreme guides to life – and a corresponding suspicion of reason and analysis. Romanticism is a movement of art and ideas that began in Europe in the mid eighteenth century and has now taken over the world.

Romanticism art view of death