<P> Sculpture remained largely impervious to Romanticism, probably partly for technical reasons, as the most prestigious material of the day, marble, does not lend itself to expansive gestures . The leading sculptors in Europe, Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen, were both based in Rome and firm Neoclassicists, not at all tempted to allow influence from medieval sculpture, which would have been one possible approach to Romantic sculpture . When it did develop, true Romantic sculpture--with the exception of a few artists such as Rudolf Maison--rather oddly was missing in Germany, and mainly found in France, with François Rude, best known from his group of the 1830s from the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, David d'Angers, and Auguste Préault . Préault's plaster relief entitled Slaughter, which represented the horrors of wars with exacerbated passion, caused so much scandal at the 1834 Salon that Préault was banned from this official annual exhibition for nearly twenty years . In Italy, the most important Romantic sculptor was Lorenzo Bartolini . </P> <Ul> <Li> <P> Francisco Goya, The Third of May 1808, 1814 </P> </Li> <Li> <P> Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1819 </P> </Li> <Li> <P> Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People 1830 </P> </Li> <Li> <P> J.M.W. Turner, The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, 1839 </P> </Li> </Ul> <Li> <P> Francisco Goya, The Third of May 1808, 1814 </P> </Li> <P> Francisco Goya, The Third of May 1808, 1814 </P>

What is not a belief that romantic poets held