Romantic Landscape Idea

The Romantic Era was an art movement that peaked between about 1800 and the 1850s. It was mostly a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment, which put people solidly at the center of the universe. During the Romantic Era landscape painters would often paint these large, sweeping landscapes with a teeny tiny human figure in there somewhere. They were all about emphasizing the grandeur of nature towering over humanity. Kinda like this painting by Thomas Fearnley from 1838 (notice the tiny human in front of the glacier):

Thomas Fearnley, Grindelwald Glacier, 1838

So I was thinking about that art movement, and how it seems like nowadays (especially in advertising images) whenever you have an image of man and nature it’s usually one of man dominating the environment, the human subject is big and towering, often in a “conquering” type pose. Nature is the the arena in which the subject is winning. Kinda like in these:

Here the emphasis is very much on the human overcoming. It’s more about the human surmounting nature and being superior to it.

So my idea is to pair up images that explore both of those concepts. Perhaps an image of a mountain peak (with tiny human) next to a picture of a person scaling the face of the peak. A picture of a massive twisting river winding around a tiny campsite and then a closeup of a person kayaking dramatically through the rapids. By going from nature is epic and towering over humans to humans are pushing through nature both concepts are emphasized. I think if it is done well, the viewer would walk away thinking that 1. nature is huge and impressive and 2. humans are even more impressive for getting out there and persevering.

So that’s my idea. I probably won’t get after it, since I’m not a sports photographer, but I think it’s a good idea, and would be an interesting project to undertake.

Romantic Landscape Idea