New Romantics: Group Exhibition

A small wooden panel, standing on a plinth amidst the grandeur of the National Gallery, London, was created around 1496 by Albrecht Dürer. It portrays Saint Jerome kneeling before a simple wooden cross. The work is theologically rich—most likely made for private devotion when religious doctrine governed the painted image. It is exquisitely rendered, created with an imagination as vast as the known world.

The reverse of the panel heightens the drama of the scene. Here, an explosion of colour and movement unfolds—a comet or eclipse bursting before our eyes. Deceptively simple, it is even more fascinating, especially when viewed through a contemporary lens. Is it the end of the world, or the moment of its creation? It would be some three hundred years before Romanticism became de rigueur. Yet, the panel remains a testament to that intangible human trait: the search for meaning beyond the rational.

Romanticism, in its earliest academic form, was an act of resistance. Against the rational grip of the Enlightenment—against the measured lines of reason—it threw open the doors to the sublime: to awe, beauty, terror, and wonder in equal measure. It was the gasp before the vastness of the night sky, the trembling before the roar of the sea, the fierce reminder that the human heart beats in rhythm with something immeasurable.