Cultural and Philosophical Foundations of the Spiritual and Aesthetic Orientations of European Romanticism

This article analyzes Romanticism – a crucial historical era of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. All discussions of the complex and multidimensional phenomenon of Romanticism are aimed at interpreting this period as a timeless spiritual and aesthetic orientation, recurring in various eras. The philosophers’ views provide a model for understanding the Romantic cult of personality and play a significant role in the formation of the Romantic artistic phenomenon. At the center of this understanding is the conceptualization of the infinite as a predicate of changeability, movement, and development. The only law of the infinite is creativity. It is the central tenet of the Romantic worldview, representing the idea of the soul’s eternal striving for the ideal. Romanticism is rightly considered a unique cultural macro-era with its own special way of understanding the world, which is centered on admiration for a strong personality, their individuality, originality, and uniqueness.