Romanticism and Realism At the end of the Baroque Period in the eighteenth and nineteenth century art was divided into two distinct categories, Romanticism and Realism. Romanticism, the passion-filled works illustrating stimulating accounts of specific events with symbolic gestures emerging from the scene, separated itself from the more politically correct stance taken by Realists. A fine example of Romanticism is Géricault's Raft of the Medusa. The brutal scene, set afloat on the wild seas, …showed first 75 words of 909 total…

…showed last 75 words of 909 total…in which heated debates between moralist of the Romantic school and the scientific naturalist of Realism and the combinations and the divisions of the two schools. The art of these times paralleled the economic divisions. The industrial revolution helped fuel the fire of the rivalry making the rich richer and the poor poorer; the art always reflecting the differences in the classes and their attitudes about the quality of life in their day and age.