Romantic chess is a style of
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
popular in the 18th century until the 1880s. This style of chess emphasizes quick, tactical maneuvers rather than long-term strategic planning. Romantic players consider winning to be secondary to winning with style.
The Romantic era of play was followed by the Scientific,
Hypermodern, and New Dynamism eras.
Games during this era generally consisted of
1.e4 openings such as the
King's Gambit
The King's Gambit is a chess opening that begins with the moves:
:1. e4 e5
:2. f4
White offers a pawn to divert the black e-pawn. If Black accepts the gambit, White has two main plans. The first is to play d4 and Bxf4, regaining the gambit ...
and
Giuoco Piano. Queen-side pawn openings were not popular and seldom played. The Romantic era is generally considered to have ended with the
1873 Vienna tournament where
Wilhelm Steinitz
William Steinitz (born Wilhelm Steinitz; May 14, 1836 – August 12, 1900) was an Austrian and, later, American chess player. From 1886 to 1894, he was the first official World Chess Champion. He was also a highly influential writer and c ...
popularized and the . This domination ushered in a new age of chess known as the "
Modern", or Classical school, which would last until the 1930s when
hypermodernism began to become popular.
The Romantic era is generally considered to have reached its peak with
Alexander McDonnell and
Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais
Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais (1795 – December 1840) was a French chess master, possibly the strongest player in the early 19th century.
Early life
La Bourdonnais was born on the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean in 1795. He w ...
, the two dominant chess players of the 1830s. The 1840s were dominated by
Howard Staunton
Howard Staunton (April 1810 – 22 June 1874) was an English chess master who is generally regarded as the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, largely as a result of his 1843 victory over Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Ama ...
, and other leading players of the era included
Adolf Anderssen
Karl Ernst Adolf Anderssen (July 6, 1818 – March 13, 1879)"Anderssen, Adolf" in ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 385. was a German chess master. He won the great internat ...
,
Daniel Harrwitz
Daniel Harrwitz (22 February 1821 – 2 January 1884) was a German chess master.
Harrwitz was born in Breslau (Wrocław) in the Prussian Province of Silesia. Harrwitz's correct birth and death dates (22 February 1821 and 2 January 1884 respectiv ...
,
Henry Bird,
Louis Paulsen
Louis Paulsen (15 January 1833 in Gut Nassengrund near Blomberg, Principality of Lippe – 18 August 1891) was a German chess player. In the 1860s and 1870s, he was among the top players in the world. He was a younger brother of Wilfried Pa ...
, and
Paul Morphy
Paul Charles Morphy (June 22, 1837 – July 10, 1884) was an American chess player. He is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his era and is often considered the unofficial World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he was c ...
.
The
Immortal Game
The Immortal Game was a chess game played by Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky on 21 June 1851 in London, during a break of the first international tournament. The bold sacrifices Anderssen made have made it one of the most famous chess g ...
, played by Anderssen and
Lionel Kieseritzky on
21 June 1851 in London—where Anderssen made bold
sacrifices
Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exis ...
to secure victory, giving up both
rooks and a bishop, then his
queen
Queen or QUEEN may refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom
** List of queens regnant
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
, and then
checkmating his opponent with his three remaining
minor pieces—is considered a supreme example of Romantic chess.
Despite the Romantic era's reputation for dashing tactical play and combinations, positional play and closed games were not at all unknown during this time; they featured prominently at the
London tournament of 1851, widely considered the first true chess tournament. Paul Morphy often complained about "dull chess" and criticized the
Sicilian Defense
The Sicilian Defence is a chess opening that begins with the following moves:
:1. e4 c5
The Sicilian is the most popular and best-scoring response to White's first move 1.e4. Opening 1.d4 is a statistically more successful opening for White b ...
and queen's pawn openings for leading to this sort of game. Morphy included a stipulation in his matches that at least half the games had to begin with a
1.e4 e5 opening.
During the 1930s,
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
co-opted chess as a political tool and to that end circulated propaganda alleging that the age of Romantic chess, dominated by dashing Aryan players such as Morphy and Anderssen, had been derailed by "cowardly, stingy" positional chess exemplified by Jewish players like Steinitz,
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker (; December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Cham ...
, and others.
The
Romantic era
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
in the arts was roughly analogous to the chess world. The arts were focused on emotional expression more than technical mastery. This would come to an end towards the end of the 19th century as evolution in the arts (
Impressionist music and
Symbolist poetry) coincided with Steinitz' emergence as the new stylistic force in the chess world. Some notable chess masters have argued that chess is an art form in addition to a science.
[CHESS AS AN ART FORM Br J Aesthet (1993) 33(1): 59-66]
See also
*
History of chess
The history of chess can be traced back nearly 1500 years to its earliest known predecessor, called chaturanga, in India; its prehistory is the subject of speculation. From India it spread to Persia. Following the Arab invasion and conquest ...
*
Immortal Game
The Immortal Game was a chess game played by Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky on 21 June 1851 in London, during a break of the first international tournament. The bold sacrifices Anderssen made have made it one of the most famous chess g ...
, a match representative of Romantic chess
*
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
*
School of chess
References
Chess terminology
History of chess
Chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
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