By contrast, the insights of Romantic genius, the interpretations of a Maestro conductor or the "readings" of a master critic deny the commonness, or "in-commonness," of sense.

It aims, as well, to go beyond the cliche of the Romantic genius and underscore the diversity and complexity of an artist whose reputation was for many decades based almost entirely on a handful of paintings in the Louvre.

This novel convincingly portrays Romantic genius and Romantic exaltation, brilliantly incarnated in the life of the German poet Novalis (1772-1801).

Recently, however, notoriety has left him as quickly as it found him, and the artist's movie-star antics and his pose as a Romantic genius are becoming old news.

Vianu nonetheless pointed out the immense difference in style and approach between the Eminescu and Caragiale, noting that, to Eminescu's metaphysical interests and "Romantic genius", the dramatist opposed his "great classical and realist endowment, a social, voluble and epicurean nature".

She has been described as a lost Romantic genius, antiquarian, architect and visionary.

Still, Liszt's dynamic personality, by turns voluptuary and ascetic, retains its hold on the contemporary imagination as the veritable embodiment of Romantic genius.

To others, he was a rapacious Don Giovanni, who cheated on his long-suffering wife and frittered away the family finances: the quintessential Romantic genius, who contributed to his own death by willfully burning the candle at both ends.

William Stafford's 1991 book "The Mozart Myths" looked at how scholars have revised their predecessors' findings, selecting and amplifying material that might support their own pet theories about the composer, depicting him, variously, as a childish victim, a Romantic genius and an Enlightenment rebel.

Yet in the 19th century - another era when art was wildly popular, with a widespread audience to match - he was recast as a free-spirited Romantic genius, intent on pursuing his own bliss.