Expressionism - Origin of the term, Visual artists, Expressionist groups in painting, In other media

A movement in art, architecture, and literature which aims to communicate the internal emotional realities of a situation, rather than its external ‘realistic’ aspect; the term was first used in Germany in 1911, but the roots of the movement can be traced to van Gogh and Gauguin in the 1880s. Their influence was felt by the Norwegian Edvard Munch, and the Belgian James Ensor, but the full flowering of Expressionism occurred in Germany from c.1905 until suppressed by Hitler. In this approach, traditional ideas of beauty and proportion are disregarded, so that artists can express their feelings more strongly by means of distortion, jarring colours, and exaggerated linear rhythms. The movement was also influential in literature, especially in German theatre after World War 1. The use of dislocation and distortion in fiction and poetry (eg in the writing of Kafka and Joyce) has also been described as Expressionist.

Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect; Additionally, the term often implies emotional angst – the number of cheerful expressionist works is relatively small.

In this general sense, painters such as Matthias Grünewald and El Greco can be called expressionist, though in practice, the term is applied mainly to 20th century works.

Origin of the term

Although it is used as term to reference, there has never been a distinct movement that called itself expressionism besides using of this term by Herwald Walden in his Polymic Magazine "Der Sturm" in 1912.

In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche presented his theory of the ancient dualism between two types of aesthetic experience, namely the Apollonian and the Dionysian;

More generally it refers to art that is expressive of intense emotion. Such art often occurs during time of social upheaval, and through the tradition of graphic art there is a powerful and moving record of chaos in Europe from the 15th century on: the Protestant Reformation, Peasants' War, Spanish Occupation of Netherlands, the rape, pillage and disaster associated with countless periods of chaos and oppression are presented in the documents of the printmaker.

The term was also coined by Czech art historian Antonín Matějček in 1910 as the opposite of impressionism: "An Expressionist wishes, above all, to express himself....[An Expressionist rejects] immediate perception and builds on more complex psychic structures....Impressions and mental images that pass through mental peoples soul as through a filter which rids them of all substantial accretions to produce their clear essence [...and] are assimilated and condense into more general forms, into types, which he transcribes through simple short-hand formulae and symbols." (Gordon, 1987)

Visual artists

Some of the movement's leading visual artists in the early 20th century were:

Germany: Heinrich Campendonk, Emil Nolde, Rolf Nesch, Franz Marc, Ernst Barlach, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Erich Heckel, Otto Dix, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Beckmann, Conrad Felixmüller, Carl Hofer, August Macke, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, Ludwig Meidner, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Gabriele Münter, Max Pechstein and Käthe Schmidt Kollwitz . France: Georges Rouault, Gen Paul and Chaim Soutine Norway: Edvard Munch, Kai Fjell Switzerland: Carl Eugen Keel Portugal: Mário Eloy

Expressionist groups in painting

There was never a group of artists that called themselves Expressionists. The movement is primarily German and Austrian, though American artists of the late 20th and early 21st Century have developed distinct movements that are generally considered part of Expressionism.

There were a number of Expressionist groups in painting, including the Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke. Later in the 20th century, the movement influenced a large number of other artists, including the so-called abstract expressionists, the latter consisting primarily of American artists such as Jackson Pollock.

The group Der Blaue Reiter was based in Munich and Die Brücke was based originally in Dresden (although some later moved to Berlin).

Influenced by the Fauves, Expressionism worked with arbitrary colors as well as jarring compositions. In reaction and opposition to French Impressionism which focused on rendering the sheer visual appearance of objects, Expressionist artists sought to capture emotions and subjective interpretations: It was not important to reproduce an aesthetically pleasing impression of the artistic subject matter;

The "head" of Der Blaue Reiter, Kandinsky, would take this a step further.

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In other media

Expressionism is also used to describe other art forms.

Some sculptors also adopted this style, as for example Ernst Barlach.

There was also an expressionist movement in film, often referred to as German Expressionism.

In literature the novels of Franz Kafka are often described as expressionist. The most influential expressionist poets were Gottfried Benn, Ernst Barlach or Alfred Döblin.

In the theatre, there was a concentrated Expressionist movement in early 20th century German theatre of which Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller were the most famous playwrights. Other notable expressionist dramatists included Reinhard Sorge, Walter Hasenclever, Hans Henny Jahnn, and Arnolt Bronnen.

Oskar Kokoschka's 1909 playlet, Murderer, The Hope of Women is often called the first expressionist drama. The extreme simplification of characters to mythic types, choral effects, declamatory dialogue and heightened intensity all would become characteristic of later expressionist plays.

Expressionist plays often dramatize the spiritual awakening and sufferings of their protagonists, and are referred to as Stationendramen (station plays), modeled on the episodic presentation of the suffering and death of Jesus in the Stations of the Cross.

The plays often dramatize the struggle against bourgeois values and established authority, often personified in the figure of the Father.

In expressionist drama, the speech is heightened, whether expansive and rhapsodic, or clipped and telegraphic.

In music, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Alban Berg, the members of the Second Viennese School, wrote pieces described as expressionist (Schoenberg also made expressionist paintings). Other composers who followed them, such as Ernst Krenek, are often considered as a part of the expressionist movement in music. What distinguished these composers from their contemporaries such as Maurice Ravel, George Gershwin and Igor Stravinsky is that expressionist composers self-consciously used atonality to free their artform from the traditional tonality. Erwartung and Die Glückliche Hand, by Schoenberg, and Wozzeck, an opera by Alban Berg (based on the play Woyzeck by Georg Büchner), are example of expressionist works.

In architecture, two specific buildings are identified as expressionist: Bruno Taut's Glass Pavilion at the Cologne Werkbund Exhibition (1914), and Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany completed in 1921.