The coldness of neoclassicism of David and Ingres, while reflecting the militarism of Napoleonic France did not suit many painters.
In France Gericault (1741 to 1824) was influenced by the power and emotion of Michelangelo's work. He chose dramatic subjects - soldiers, horsemen, battle scenes, which he painted with colour, vigor and theatricality.
Delacroix (1798 to 1863) also a Frenchman, was impressed by classical composition but added boldness, vigor and vitality to the solidness of the neoclassical example.
William Blake (1757 to 1827) was an Englishman who trained as an engraver in a painting office. His drawings and water colours have an intensely personal and visionary view of creation in which man is caught between forces of good and evil and god sits in judgment of his actions. His figure drawings have the solidity and power of Michelangelo's.
William Constable (1776 to 1837) an Englishman, painted out of doors to record the changing effects of nature - clouds, sunlight, reflections, the rural landscape. His work shows a serene fresh and peaceful frame of mind and closeness with nature. In a sense a very personal view and so Romantic in feeling.
William Turner (1775 to 1851) saw in nature the Romantic power of fire, sunlight, shadow, water and atmosphere which he presented in an energetic and at times violent manner. His style of capturing momentary effects of light and colour had an enormous effect on the French Impressionist painters who followed.
Goya (1746 to 1828) was a painter of the Spanish court and its nobility. Although called upon to paint portraits of and pictures for the aristocracy, he managed to convey the human qualities of greed, vanity, emptiness without falling from favour. In his later works, apparitions of witches, stupidity and evil appear, and with Blake, his paintings have a strong surrealist content.