Fanny Mendelssohn Comparison

ay Introduction

Beginning with the late nineteenth century, a new “Romantic” attitude characterized culture and many works of art in Western civilization. It emphasized a revulsion against established values such as social order and religion and exalted individualism, irrationalily, imagination, emotions and nature. Two famous artists from the age of Romanticism are Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Mendelssohn and Rosetti led very different lives. Rossetti was honoured for his work in his time while Mendelssohn was suppressed. The musical piece Neue Liebe, Neues Leben, by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and the artistic composition A vision of Fiametta by Dante Rossetti are great works that are similar in terms of their poetic inspiration, but
Inspired by artistic prose and personal experience, the works philosophize about the seductive nature of love. They describe the inexplicable allure of love both in life and in death. Favouring symbolism over Humanisn, A Vision of Fiametta’s symbolic subject matter contrasts with the artistic norms or the Romantic era. Fanny Mendelssohn’s program piece, on the other hand, was composed in the typical style of the century, exhibiting emotion, lacking structure and describing the uncertainty of love. While Rossetti’s work was celebrated and encouraged during his lifetime, Fanny Mendelssohn’s was discouraged and frowned upon by her family and the society in which she lived in. It was not until after her unfortunate death that she was truly recognized for her artistic greatness. Her works now establish her as one of the greatest female composers in history. It is fortunate that, in the face of society’s expectations of women, she proceeded to defy the social norms thereafter, and that some of her brilliant work remained for the world to appreciate and to revere as that of a great female