Characteristic of Romantic art and literature are unfulfilled longing, passionate devotion, and a universal, poetic approach that makes room for the visionary, the irrational, and the sublime. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Symbolist painters such as Arnold Böcklin, Franz von Stuck, and James Ensor contrasted a worldview increasingly marked by science and technology with the dark side of life—the uncanny—as discovered by Romanticism. After World War I the Surrealists added a new aesthetic dimension to this, turning dreams and intoxicating experiences into sources of artistic inspiration. The fantastical, unsettling visual worlds of painters such as Max Ernst, René Magritte, and Salvador Dalí conjure up the spirit of “Dark Romanticism.” The original CD audio guide from the series Art to Hear revises the “romanticizing” view of Romanticism and discusses important masterpieces with the help of a compact, illustrated companion book. Exhibition schedule: Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, September 26, 2012-January 20, 2013In conjunction with this exhibition a catalogue (English edition ISBN 978-3-7757-3373-1) and an audio guide in the Art to Read series (German edition ISBN 978-3-7757-3375-5) are also available.