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

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 ...

{{Chess-stub

See also

References