Nationalism developed through culture in Europe as :
(i) Culture played an important role in creating example-the idea of the nation, art and poetry, stories and music helped to express and shape nationalist felling.
(ii) Romanticism was a cultural movement which sought to develop a particular form of nationalist sentiment.
Romantic artists and poets generally criticized the glorification of reason and science and focussed instead on emotions, intuition and mystical feeling.
(iii) German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder claimed that true German culture was to be discovered among the common people (das volk). It was through folk songs, folk poetry and folk dances that the true spirit of the nation was popularised.