Romanticism was a key movement in the counter-enlightenment and a propagator to a drastic shift in art to an emphasis in intuition, imagination, and feeling. While it may have led to some Romantic thinkers being accused of irrationalism, these were the perfect conditions to redefine the use of color.

Coming off the back of ideals from the french revolution, and breaking from the realities of the industrial revolution, "Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as misunderstood heroic individuals and artists that altered society. It also legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority which permitted freedom from classical notions of form in art."