So, here is the final verdict on your preferences in art:
Style: romanticism
Genre: religious and mythological paintings
Your choice of religious and mythological paintings of romanticist is not common today. Why is that and what does it tell us about you? The name of the genre speaks for itself – in these paintings you will enjoy the prominent mystical subjects, myths, ballads, fairy-tales and legends, images and themes from myths and the holy books.
These topics were exploited by classicists, symbolists, expressionists and representatives of other styles. But the romanticists excelled in making these stories even more exciting and overwhelming than they are in narrative. Looking at a visual representation of a story about David and Goliath, or Adam and Eve, how can you tell a romanticist painting from a classicist one? Well, classicists followed the paradigm of the style and depicted the stories that honoured the universal moral imperative, the divine reason to which a man should sacrifice his personal emotions and desires – the stories that glorified the deeds of great men who suppressed own ambitions in the name of duty and the universal law. Symbolists envisioned the world differently. They believed that the world as we see it is just a screen hiding some transcendent reality that may only be perceived through emotions and intuition with the help of cues and symbols available in the visible world. Therefore the subjects and symbols of religious and mythological paintings of symbolists examine the ways to see beyond the visible world and come to know and experience the spiritual reality that rules it.
As for romanticists, they are fanatical philanthropists – they love a MAN and prefer the individual, unique personal traits, stories and emotions to anything typical and generally accepted. They glorified the revolt, exotica and passion. Their characters and subjects are outrageously extravagant and picturesque. People are highly sensitive and emotional, they accomplish things that a mediocre person would never dream of, all this happening against some exotic restless landscapes – nothing typical remains the priority. A struggle a man leads with himself and the outer world, charged with passion and temperature and enclosed into a mythological or religious subject is all that makes up the genre you prefer in romanticism.
A person who prefers religious and mythological scenes of romanticists is the one who is striving to push the reset button on the world, a determined person who keeps raising the bar for self and others. He is choosy and prefers communicating people who excel him, playing chess with people who are way better players. He is strange to any envy, he respects his own views and principles. Yet he is thin-skinned about his failures. These people usually have a role model, some gurus to consult or follow. He can’t be productive if directed by a manager who is not an outstanding expert in his field. This person’s initiative and enthusiasm would work miracles for private entrepreneurship or an international company that invests in its employees, yet he will never find a way at a state or governmental job or in small business where he will always be pinned as a know-all and show-off and nobody will care to unleash his potential. This person is easily carried away, looking for adventures, yet in personal life he or she may be overly demanding towards others. It’s quite useful to hang around such people, since they never stop their personal and professional development and lead and push others in that direction.
Must see for you:
Maitres: Edward Burne-Jones, Sir John Millais, John Martin (Great Britain), Eugene Delacroix, Paul Delaroche (France), Ivan Aivazovsky, Viktor Vasnetsov (Russia), Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (The Netherlands), Francisco Jose de Goya (Spain) , Thomas Cole (USA)
Modern artists: modern romanticists do not often resort to religious and mythological scenes.
Paintings currently available in online galleries:
