“Perfect” - Ed Sheeran, is perhaps one of the most played songs in weddings in recent years.
The search for perfect, idealised, daydreamed and declared love that represents romance so well today.
Romantic films came to our minds when we talk about romantic. They can move us, like love stories of famous people that fascinate us. We are touched also by simple people, considered to be romantic for their little gestures and attention to the one they love. We are referred to a romanticism that is easy to recognise, express and demonstrate.
If being a romantic in your love story means giving flowers, a box of chocolates or dedicating a song, then it is not so rare and difficult to be romantic.
Tools and capabilities are at the hand of everybody, ideas and advices are available with a click. But is this really the today romance?
To answer this question, we have looked at romanticism in its artistic, musical, cultural and literary declinations called precisely: Romanticism.
The current of Romanticism, born at the end of the 18th century in Germany, although the word romanticism has its origins in the English term "romantic", to indicate chivalric romances, , had a different meaning. The current that spread in the 19th century was in fact based on imagination, passion, sentiment, courage, man's tormented relationship with nature. Just think of the German cultural movement Sturm und Drang. The individual, who is no longer seen as rational and pragmatic, becomes brilliant in his creativity, recklessness and restlessness. The human beings feel amazed by the wonders of nature, wise but at the same time rebellious.
Love is interpreted as an instinctive force, capable of abandonment and great sensuality, always in search of the absolute. Like in Hayez's "The Kiss", one of the most famous masterpieces of Romanticism, the symbol of romantic love still today, the representation of love and freedom.
Maybe even in modern times, love has fought for freedom. In an era in which the collectivity becomes a community and experiences are lived and shared in real time, the freedom of expression of feeling, listening to the soul in its purest state, often thrown between ideologies and repressions, re-emerges in the triumph for which only love can fight.
Love is an expression of oneself, aware and free. Wasn't this the very origin of romanticism? Undressing the rules, letting go of instinct, living a love free from external conditioning. Be guided by yourself, however tormented, but always defended by genuine feeling.
Today it is certainly easier to express a romantic thought or gesture, luckily for those who have the desire to surprise and communicate some sweetness. However, the secret of how to make these gestures original and ingenious, of being able to live the intention with passion and imagination, remains true romantics. A new awareness of the essence of LOVE, which has overcome obstacles, barriers, with storms and impulses, confirms once again the power of a feeling that, using romanticism in all its nuances, always wins.
