“Romanticism is precisely situated neither in the choice of subject nor in exact truth, but in a way of feeling” - Charles Baudelaire, 1846.

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.

Two centuries on, the world has shifted. The overwhelming power of nature—the force that once shaped poetry, painting, and philosophy—is now filtered through the screens of our devices. In cities, the night sky has been replaced by a digital glow, the constellations supplanted by endless scrolling. We no longer look up—we look down. And in doing so, we risk forgetting the deep, transformative encounter with the unknown that Romanticism once demanded.

New Romantics is an exhibition that urges us to look beyond the screen—beyond the rationality of algorithms that shape our lives. It invites us to reclaim what has been lost or overlooked in our relentless pursuit of an idealised digital utopia. The exhibition spans ways of making art: from abstraction to evocative realism, and even acts of subversive irreverence in the face of a deeply complicated world. The works do not simply depict; they invite us to step outside the rational and into a space where the known world dissolves into something more vast.

Like Dürer’s Saint Jerome, we must peer behind the fantasy and look toward the beauty of the indeterminate and unknown. Ultimately, it asks a question akin to that explosive verso of 1496: are we at the end, or is this only the beginning?

Ralph Hobbs | Anthea Mentzalis
September, 2025

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