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Expressionism
- What is Expressionism in art?
- When and where did Expressionism begin?
- What are the main features of Expressionist art?
- How does Expressionism differ from other art styles like Impressionism or Realism?
- Who are some famous Expressionist artists?
- How did Expressionism influence art and culture in the 20th century?
Expressionism, artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjectiveemotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person. The artist accomplishes this aim through distortion, exaggeration,primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, ordynamic application of formal elements. In a broader sense Expressionism is one of the main currents of art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and its qualities of highly subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression are typical of a wide range of modern artists and art movements. Expressionism can also be seen as a permanent tendency in Germanic and Nordic art from at least the European Middle Ages, particularly in times ofsocial change or spiritual crisis, and in this sense it forms the converse of the rationalist and classicizing tendencies of Italy and later ofFrance.
More specifically, Expressionism as a distinct style or movement refers to a number ofGerman artists, as well as Austrian, French, and Russian ones, who became active in the years beforeWorld War I and remained so throughout much of the interwar period.
Birth and development
The roots of the German Expressionist school lay in the works ofVincent van Gogh,Edvard Munch, andJames Ensor, each of whom in the period 1885–1900 evolved a highly personalpainting style. These artists used the expressive possibilities of colour and line to explore dramatic and emotion-laden themes, toconvey the qualities of fear, horror, and the grotesque, or simply to celebrate nature with hallucinatory intensity. They broke away from the literal representation of nature in order to express more subjective outlooks or states of mind.
The second and principal wave of Expressionism began about 1905, when a group of German artists led byErnst Ludwig Kirchner formed a loose association calledDie Brücke (“The Bridge”). The group includedErich Heckel,Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, andFritz Bleyl. These painters were in revolt against what they saw as the superficial naturalism of academicImpressionism. They wanted to reinfuse German art with a spiritual vigour they felt it lacked, and they sought to do this through an elemental, highly personal and spontaneous expression. Die Brücke’s original members were soon joined by the GermansEmil Nolde,Max Pechstein, andOtto Müller. The Expressionists were influenced by their predecessors of the 1890s and were also interested in African wood carvings and the works of such Northern Europeanmedieval and Renaissance artists asAlbrecht Dürer,Matthias Grünewald, andAlbrecht Altdorfer. They were also aware ofNeo-Impressionism,Fauvism, and other recent movements.
The German Expressionists soon developed a style notable for its harshness, boldness, and visual intensity. They used jagged, distorted lines; rough, rapid brushwork; and jarring colours to depict urban street scenes and other contemporary subjects in crowded, agitatedcompositions notable for their instability and their emotionally charged atmosphere. Many of their works express frustration,anxiety, disgust, discontent, violence, and generally a sort of frenetic intensity of feeling in response to the ugliness, the crude banality, and the possibilities and contradictions that they discerned in modern life.Woodcuts, with their thick jagged lined and harsh tonal contrasts, were one of the favourite media of the German Expressionists.
The works ofDie Brücke artists stimulated Expressionism in other parts of Europe.Oskar Kokoschka andEgon Schiele ofAustria adopted their tortured brushwork and angular lines, andGeorges Rouault andChaim Soutine in France each developed painting styles marked by intense emotional expression and the violent distortion of figural subject matter. The painterMax Beckmann, the graphic artistKäthe Kollwitz, and the sculptorsErnst Barlach andWilhelm Lehmbruck, all ofGermany, also worked in Expressionist modes. The artists belonging to the group known asDer Blaue Reiter (“The Blue Rider”) are sometimes regarded as Expressionists, although their art is generally lyrical and abstract, less overtly emotional, more harmonious, and more concerned with formal and pictorial problems than that of Die Brücke artists.
Expressionism was a dominant style in Germany in the years immediately followingWorld War I, where it suited the postwar atmosphere ofcynicism, alienation, and disillusionment. Some of the movement’s later practitioners, such asGeorge Grosz andOtto Dix, developed a more pointed, socially critical blend of Expressionism andrealism known as theNeue Sachlichkeit (“New Objectivity”). As can be seen from such labels asAbstract Expressionism andNeo-Expressionism, the spontaneous, instinctive, and highly emotional qualities of Expressionism have been shared by several subsequent art movements in the 20th century.
