In an age of increasing mobility and dissolving social bonds, the yearning for intimacy and security is growing steadily stronger in Western society. Plagued by uncertainty in the face of social and political systems in turmoil and a sense of vulnerability generated by reports of war and horrific images of terror, many people turn away from reality in search of safe havens and perspectives of hope. This trend is also reflected in contemporary visual art. A new spirit of Romanticism is being revived in earnest by a number of young painters and in the key media of the post-modern world, such as photography, and installation art-expressions of a longing for beauty, paradise, and fictional, fairy-tale worlds. Emphasis on the individual and individual feelings goes hand in hand with a reawakening of interest in the landscape and its symbolic qualities as an appropriate image of our prevailing mood. Presenting works by some thirteen artists, this publication traces the development of the New Romanticism in contemporary art. Artists featured (selection): Hernan Bas, Peter Doig, Kaye Donachie, Uwe Henneken, Justine Kurland, Catherine Opie, Christopher Orr, Laura Owens, David Thorpe, Christian Ward Exhibition schedule: Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, May 12-August 28, 2005