The Rhine romanticism was the interpretation of the landscape conditions and history of the Rhine Valley in the cultural-historical period of the romanticism, by the end of the 18th century until the late 19th century and was continued in all forms of art expression.
In response to the nascent industrialization with their perceived negative side effects, artists and writers turned to nature and the past. Friedrich Schlegel describes his impressions of a journey along the Rhine in 1806: "For me only those areas are beautiful, which are usually called the rough and wild, since only these are exalted, only exalted areas can be beautiful, only these excite the thoughts of nature. [...] But nothing is able to embellish and to increase the impression as much as the traces of human courage in the ruins of nature, bold castles atop wild rocks – monuments of the time of human heroes harking back to those higher heroic days of nature. [1]
Lord Byron made the Rhine area enormously popular in England in 1818 with his verse narrative, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage . The German poet Adelheid of Stolterfoth created numerous Rhine poems. In the visual arts William Turner drew attention to the Rhine, especially in England, with his paintings, which were the result of several cruises on the river. The most popular romantic Rhine views, the reproductions in varying formats, such as postcards spreads were derived from Nikolai von Astudin.
The Rhine Gorge was depicted by late 18th century travellers like the Italian Aurelio de' Giorgi Bertola (first travelogue in the romantic style) in 1795 and the British John Gardnor (etchings), who both traveled the gorge in 1787. In 1802, Clemens Brentano and Ludwig Achim von Arnim toured the valley, which was developing from a region one passed through on the Grand Tour to Italy into a first rank tourist destination in its own right.
After Switzerland, with its rugged mountain valleys, the rocky Upper Middle Rhine Valley with its many ruins became a "must" for tourists. Many princes and wealthy individuals began to rebuild the castles; foremost among these was the Prussian royal house, which was building at multiple locations simultaneously. The most outstanding work of the Romantic Rhine is Stolzenfels Castle, built by King Frederick William IV of Prussia in Koblenz. Even absolutely secular constructions, such as tunnel entrances, were built in Gothic style during the Romantic and neo-Romantic periods.
The popular image of the romantic Rhine in the first half of the 19th century was not derived from paintings, but almost exclusively from the prints. Aquatints, lithographs and engravings illustrated travel books and were published as series of postcards. Between 1820 and 1830 at least 12 companies published their own series of postcards, each with separately produced imagery.
The British were leaders in the field, with their steel engraving process, which was patented in London in 1826, which replaced the older copper engraving technology and enabled accurate representations and long print runs. At the time, William Tombleson provided the best templates, and 50 engravers turned these into 68 representations of the Middle Rhine in "Views of the Rhine", first published in 1832.
A year later "Traveling Sketches" by Clarkson Stanfield was published. The steel engraving with a view on Bingen and the Rhine-Nahe corner from the other side of the Rhine first appeared in this publication. The English artist skillfully reinforces the effect of the view on the city with the backlit Basilica and the reflecting surface of the water. The geographic reality was, however, largely sacrificed on the altar of the Rhine romanticism. The viewer is looking due south and at this latitude, one rarely sees a low sun or a sunset in this direction. Despite these flaws, this attractive view is one of the best known and most copied vistas of Bingen in the 19th century.
Among the artistically and technically very sophisticated publications of this time is the Verdute series, depicted the whole course of the Rhine, published by the Swiss publisher and painter Johann Ludwig Bleuler around 1827. Bleuler's major work, "Voyage aux bords du Rhin pittoresque et de la Suisse", appeared in 1845.
In 2002, UNESCO declared the Upper Middle Rhine Valley a World Heritage Site.
Bacharach is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Rhein-Nahe, whose seat is in Bingen am Rhein, although that town is not within its bounds.
The Moselle is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A small part of Belgium is in its basin as it includes the Sauer and the Our.
Koblenz is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multinational tributary.
Karl Ludwig Johannes Baedeker was a German publisher whose company, Baedeker, set the standard for authoritative guidebooks for tourists.
The Rhine Gorge is a popular name for the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, a 65 km section of the Rhine between Koblenz and Rüdesheim in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse in Germany. It was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in June 2002 because of its beauty as a cultural landscape, its importance as a route of transport across Europe, and the unique adaptations of the buildings and terraces to the steep slopes of the gorge.
Rüdesheim am Rhein is a German winemaking town in the Rhine Gorge, and part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in this region. It lies in the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt, Hessen. Known as Rüdesheim, it is officially Rüdesheim am Rhein, to distinguish it from Rüdesheim an der Nahe. It is a major tourist attraction, especially for foreign visitors.
Between Bingen and Bonn, Germany, the river Rhine flows as the Middle Rhine through the Rhine Gorge, a formation created by erosion, which happened at about the same rate as an uplift in the region, leaving the river at about its original level, and the surrounding lands raised. This gorge is quite deep, about 130 metres (430 ft) from the top of the rocks down to the average water-line.
Niederheimbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Oberdiebach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Trechtingshausen is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
The Soonwald is a forested, low mountain region, up to 657.5 m above sea level (NN), which forms part of the Hunsrück mountains in the German Central Uplands. It lies within the counties of Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis and Bad Kreuznach in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
Stolzenfels Castle is a former medieval fortress castle ("Burg") turned into a palace, near Koblenz on the left bank of the Rhine, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Stolzenfels was a ruined 13th-century castle, gifted to the Prussian crown prince, Frederick William in 1823. He had it rebuilt as a 19th-century palace in Gothic Revival style. Today, it is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Upper Middle Rhine Valley.
Johann Ludwig Bleuler, sometimes called Louis was a Swiss painter, landscape artist and publisher.
Rhine Castle trail - Rheinburgenweg, follows the left side of the Rhine from Bingen to Remagen-Rolandseck and the right side takes the route of the Rheinsteig from Rüdesheim am Rhein to Koblenz.
The Electoral Palace in Koblenz, was the residence of the last Archbishop and Elector of Trier, Clemens Wenceslaus of Saxony, who commissioned the building in the late 18th century. In the mid-19th century, the Prussian Crown Prince had his official residence there during his years as military governor of the Rhine Province and the Province of Westphalia. It now houses various offices of the federal government.
Klopp Castle is a castle in the town of Bingen am Rhein in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. In the nineteenth century, the bergfried from the original medieval fortified castle was restored and a new building added which houses the town's administration.
Rhenus Pater is the personification or river god of the Rhine, attested in epigraphy and associated with Neptunus, called "father of nymphs and rivers" by Martial (10.7). Because of his depiction with horns also called Rhenus bicornis, and as an allegory of the subjugated barbarian tribes called Rhenus cornibus fractis "Rhenus with broken horns" by Ovid. There are records of Celtic and Germanic human sacrifice to river gods, and of the Rhine specifically records of a custom of submerging newly-born infants as a test of either their vitality, or as an oracle to determine if they had been conceived in wedlock.
Adelheid Karoline Wilhelmine Julie von Stolterfoth was a German poet.
Fritz Michel was a German physician, politician, historian and art historian.
Concordia was the first German steamboat on the Rhine. On 1 May 1827 she made her first trip from Mainz to Köln.