Book description
Three great revolutions rocked the world around 1800. The first two -
the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution - have inspired the
greatest volume of literature. But the third - the romantic revolution -
was perhaps the most fundamental and far-reaching. From Byron,
Wordsworth, Coleridge and Burns, to Beethoven, Wagner, Berlioz, Rossini
and Liszt, to Goya, Turner, Delacroix and Blake, the romantics brought
about nothing less than a revolution when they tore up the artistic rule
book of the old regime. This was the period in which art acquired its
modern meaning; for the first time the creator, rather than the created,
took centre-stage. Artists became the high priests of a new religion,
and as the concert hall and gallery came to take the place of the
church, the public found a new subject worthy of veneration in
paintings, poetry and music. Tim Blanning's sparkling, wide-ranging
survey traces the roots and evolution of a cultural revolution whose
reverberations continue to be felt today. Tim Blanning is Professor of
Modern European History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of the British
Academy. He has been described by THE SUNDAY TIMES as 'a long-time
Cambridge academic who can make even the most arcane subject thrum with
interest'. He lives in Cambridge.
