View of the city centre of Jena—in the middle the »Jentower«.

The imagined reality

On the legacy of Romanticism in the modern world
View of the city centre of Jena—in the middle the »Jentower«.
Image: Jens Meyer (University of Jena)

Does life have a meaning? And if so, what is it? Are we as individuals part of a greater whole? Some questions cannot be answered unequivocally, even with the most sophisticated scientific methods. But that does not stop us from searching for answers nevertheless. In doing so, we allow ourselves to be guided by our imagination: we create utopias, envision the future and imagine worlds and dimensions that go beyond those that can be measured and experienced. This form of conscious creation of meaning is an invention of Romanticism—the second innovative movement after the Enlightenment to set modernity on its way. Researchers at the University of Jena are studying the present-day traces of this era, in the very place where Romanticism had its origins in Germany.

In the former Leutragasse 5 the famous »Romanticist Gathering« took place in November 1799.
Picture: Städtische Museen Jena
The dawn of the modern age
The roots of Romanticism in Germany can be found in Jena
Stefan Matuschek behind busts of central protagonists of Jena's early Romanticism.
Image: Jens Meyer (University of Jena)
What we cannot know, we imagine
An Interview with literature expert Stefan Matuschek
Often described as a landscape of romantic longing: the »mystical« forest
Image: Jens Meyer (University of Jena)
Romanticism around the world
Three researchers and their projects on the »Romantic Model«
Prof. Dr Johannes Grave at the university’s collection of paintings.
Image: Jens Meyer (University of Jena)
The new freedom of vision
On the traces of Romanticism in the visual arts of Europe
The wanderer above the Sea of Fog, painted around 1817 by Caspar David Friedrich.
Image: bpk / Hamburger Kunsthalle / Elke Walford
Romanticism favours »as well as« approach over »either or«
A painting offers Romantic approaches to crisis management
View of a manuscript by Caspar David Friedrich.
Image: Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
»Friedrich had quite a sense of humour«
Art historian Johannes Grave examines the writings of Friedrich
PD Dr Sandra Kerschbaumer, research coordinator of the Research Training Group »The Romantic Model«.
Image: Jens Meyer (University of Jena)
The world must be romanticized
Sandra Kerschbaumer on Romantic motifs in politics
Nature, in the middle of the city: a magpie, observed at the Paradiespark in Jena.
Image: Doreen Kirsche (Universität Jena)
The extraordinary in the ordinary
An invitation to view the urban environment with different eyes
Dr Helmut Hühn in the Ernst Abbe veranda of Schiller's Garden House in Jena.
Image: Jens Meyer (University of Jena)
»We have to know and recognize our own history of thought​«
Helmut Hühn on the importance of Romantic places of remembrance
Replica of a »dry charging pile« designed by Johann Wilhelm Ritter (Ernst-Haeckel-Haus collection).
Image: Jens Meyer (University of Jena)
»A real heaven of knowledge on earth«
Johann Wilhelm Ritter discovered the UV radiation in Jena