The spread of Romantic Postulates through the nineteenth-century art Journals. El Artista (1835-1836) and The Germ (1850).

Abstract

The birth of artistic magazines was one of the most original contributions of nineteenth-century Europe to the contemporary art historiography. Closely related to the defense of the romantic ideals in some cases, oriented towards the general public in others, these magazines contributed decisively towards the bourgeois society of the nineteenth century’s contact with the Fine Arts which had hitherto remained locked in academic circles. In this analysis we propose to compare significantly two journalistic projects born within artistic circles attached to Romanticism, the Spanish magazine El Artista (1835-1836) and the English The Germ (1850), evaluating to what extent they helped to spread the ideals of this movement, what strategies were followed in each case and what degree of commitment showed in their management teams, establishing similarities and differences depending on the state and evolution of the Romantic movement in both countries.