1. Romanticism (late 18th – mid-19th century)
Why it produced polymaths:
Romanticism celebrated emotion, imagination, and individual genius — ideals that naturally encouraged artists to express themselves across multiple forms.
Notable polymaths:
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William Blake – Poet, painter, engraver, visionary (still fits here beyond fantasy).
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Novelist (Faust), poet, playwright, and scientific illustrator.
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John Ruskin – Art critic, watercolorist, and philosopher of aesthetics.
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Eugène Delacroix – Painter who kept extensive literary journals exploring color theory and philosophy.
Significance:
Romanticism blurred the line between writing and painting — both were seen as vehicles for soul expression.
2. Symbolism (late 19th century)
Why it produced polymaths:
Symbolism viewed art as a means of spiritual or psychological revelation. Artists sought to express hidden truths through both words and images.
Notable polymaths:
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Gustave Moreau – Painter and essayist on myth and the unconscious.
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Odilon Redon – Illustrator and writer whose dreamlike lithographs paralleled his symbolist prose.
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Aubrey Beardsley – Illustrator, designer, and decadent writer (connected to Wilde’s circle).
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Jean Delville – Painter, poet, and occult philosopher.
Significance:
The Symbolists made art and literature interdependent, laying foundations for Surrealism and fantasy art alike.
3. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (mid–late 19th century, England)
Why it produced polymaths:
The Pre-Raphaelites aimed to unite poetry, painting, and medieval ideals. Many wrote verse as meticulously as they painted.
Notable polymaths:
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Painter and poet (The Blessed Damozel).
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William Morris – Designer, illustrator, poet, novelist, and founder of the Arts and Crafts movement.
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Edward Burne-Jones – Painter who collaborated with Morris and illustrated literary works.
Significance:
Their holistic approach treated beauty itself as a moral and intellectual pursuit — every medium part of a single aesthetic philosophy.
4. The Renaissance (15th–16th centuries)
Why it produced polymaths:
The Renaissance ideal was literally the “universal man” (uomo universale) — mastery across arts and sciences was the measure of genius.
Notable polymaths:
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Leonardo da Vinci – Painter, anatomist, engineer, writer of treatises and notebooks on every subject imaginable.
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Michelangelo Buonarroti – Sculptor, painter, poet (The Sonnets of Michelangelo).
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Albrecht Dürer – Printmaker, mathematician, and author of major works on perspective and human proportion.
Significance:
Renaissance polymaths treated art and writing as extensions of rational curiosity and divine geometry. Both were ways to understand God, man, and nature.
5. Surrealism (early–mid 20th century)
Why it produced polymaths:
Surrealism demanded that artists explore the unconscious through any expressive means. Its members freely moved between poetry, painting, and film.
Notable polymaths:
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André Breton – Poet, art theorist, and visual artist; founder of the movement.
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Salvador Dalí – Painter, filmmaker, and prolific author of manifestos and autobiographical fiction.
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Max Ernst – Painter, sculptor, and writer of surrealist novels (Une Semaine de Bonté).
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Leonora Carrington – Painter and novelist whose surreal imagery and mythic prose mirror each other.
Significance:
In Surrealism, the boundary between painting and writing vanished — both were dream documentation.
6. Modernism (early 20th century)
Why it produced polymaths:
Modernism valued experimentation and cross-disciplinary innovation. Many modernists used both word and image to break conventions.
Notable polymaths:
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Jean Cocteau – Poet, filmmaker, novelist, and visual artist.
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Wyndham Lewis – Painter and author of Tarr and The Apes of God.
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Gertrude Stein – Writer and patron who painted with words, influencing cubist aesthetics.
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Marcel Duchamp – Conceptual artist and occasional writer of philosophical essays and notes.
Significance:
Modernism united art and literature under the banner of form over realism — all creation was experiment.
7. The Arts and Crafts / Aesthetic Movement (late 19th century)
Why it produced polymaths:
This movement saw no hierarchy between art, craft, and writing. Beauty was to be lived and written equally.
Notable polymaths:
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William Morris – Again central here for his synthesis of design, poetry, and prose (News from Nowhere).
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Oscar Wilde – Though primarily a writer, he engaged heavily with aesthetic theory and design principles.
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Walter Crane – Illustrator and children’s author who wrote extensively on art and education.
Significance:
Their approach blurred “fine art” and “applied art,” and their writing was often a manifesto of visual ideals.
8. The Bauhaus (1919–1933)
Why it produced polymaths:
The Bauhaus aimed to unify all arts, merging visual design, architecture, and theoretical writing.
Notable polymaths:
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Paul Klee – Painter and theorist whose notebooks on color and form are modern classics.
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Wassily Kandinsky – Abstract painter and author of Concerning the Spiritual in Art.
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László Moholy-Nagy – Painter, photographer, and prolific writer on design and light.
Significance:
For Bauhaus artists, writing was not an afterthought — it was the intellectual architecture behind their visual work.
Summary
If fantasy birthed its artist-authors through imagination and worldbuilding, then these other movements birthed them through philosophy, spirituality, and aesthetic revolution.
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Renaissance: Sought divine truth through mastery.
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Romanticism: Expressed emotion and genius through both brush and pen.
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Pre-Raphaelitism & Symbolism: Married image and verse in pursuit of beauty and mystery.
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Surrealism & Modernism: Destroyed the wall between word and image entirely.
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Bauhaus: Systematized the relationship between art and theory.
