1. REVOLTS AND LIBERATION FIGHTS The subject of the independence of Greece, subjected to the Turkish yoke, was vividly debated by the Romantics. George Byron, who went to fight alongside the Greeks against the Ottomans, died in the repeatedly besieged and liberated, thanks to the support of foreigners, Missolungi. Delacroix presented the allegorical personification of Greece after Missolungi's capitulation. A woman in a traditional Hellenic robe, leaning on fragments of the walls of the destroyed city, has been defeated, but she is ready to drop her shackles. (based on Ilaria Ciseri, Romanticism: 1780–1860: the birth of a new sensitivity)

Eugène Delacroix, Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi (1826)

2. THE DRAMAS OF EXISTENCE In the summer of 1816, as a result of the captain's mistake, the frigate "Medusa" sank off the coast of Africa with one hundred and fifty people on board, several of which were found drifting on a raft two weeks later. Géricault read a book written by a doctor, who was a survivor of the disaster, describing incidents of cannibalism that took place there, he also got acquainted with other reports of survivors. The creation of the Raft was preceded by dozens of composition studies, including numerous auxiliary sketches in the morgue. (based on Anna Lewicka-Morawska, Spór Ingres - Delacroix, [w:] tejże, Sztuka świata, t. 8, Warszawa 1994, p. 97.)

Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1819)

3. THE POWER OF NATURE AND THE ELEMENTS Exhibited in 1835 Turner's The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons caused a great stirring among artists. His boldness in depicting the phenomena of flames, smoke, and flares on the water was admired, as was the artist's mastery, but at the same time the audacity of color combinations shocked many viewers. (based on Maria Rzepińska, Historia koloru w dziejach malarstwa europejskiego, Warszawa 1989, p. 452–453)

William Turner, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1835)

4. VISIONS AND FANTASIES Romanticism was characterized by irrationalism and a taste for the extraordinary and fantasy. The Swiss painter Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741-1825) explored other realms of the imagination. His painting depicts the demons of the subconscious released during sleep - the emanations of animal and erotic instincts. The artist focused on the mysterious areas of the human soul and psyche. The head of a blind mare emerging from behind the curtain is the personification of the worst kind of dream - a nightmare.

Johann Heinrich Füssli, The Nightmare (1781)

5. ORIENTALISM AND EXOTICISM The pictorial splendour of this "orgy of death" is probably unprecedented in European painting. We are in a palace chamber. Sardanapalus, resting on his bed, observes the following of his order, unmoved. And according to it, everything that was the love and the delight of his life has to die: women, horses, valuables. Thus, there is slaughter around his bed. The perverse beauty of this painting was too shocking for the painting to be accepted by the audience and the critics of the Salon in 1827. (Based on: Maria Poprzęcka, Kochankowie z masakrą w tle i inne eseje o malarstwie historycznym, Warszawa 2004, p. 55–56.)

1. Portrait of Władysław Branicki Józef Oleszkiewicz, 1819, National Museum in Warsaw

2. Portrait of General Henryk Dembiński Wojciech Korneli Stattler, around 1850, National Museum in Warsaw

3. Somosierra Piotr Michałowski, 1844–1855, National Museum in Krakow

4. Oedipus and Antigonus Antoni Brodowski, 1828, National Museum in Warsaw

5. Farewell to the insurgent Artur Grottger, 1866, National Museum in Krakow

6. Crossing of the Berezina January Suchodolski, 1859, National Museum in Poznan