Romanticism

This Romantic outlook prioritised sentiment and individuality and manifested itself in literature, music and the visual arts. In Dutch art, Romanticism made its presence felt in painters’ depictions of dramatic landscapes featuring hills and valleys, mountaintops and raging rivers, menacing stormy skies, and pink orange sunsets. Such landscapes were almost impossible to find in the Netherlands, so many Dutch Romantic artists spent time abroad. Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, for example, made his way to Kleve where he captured the grandeur of German nature. In turn, Wijnand Nuyen travelled to France and mesmerised by the savage Atlantic Ocean and its rocky coast, he immortalised the futility of human existence.