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Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in
poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...
and
painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...
, originating in
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around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists have sought to express the meaningVictorino Tejera, 1966, pages 85,140, Art and Human Intelligence, Vision Press Limited, London of emotional experience rather than physical reality. Expressionism developed as an
avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...
style before the
First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. It remained popular during the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
,Bruce Thompson, University of California, Santa Cruz
lecture on Weimar culture/Kafka'a Prague
particularly in Berlin. The style extended to a wide range of the arts, including expressionist architecture, painting, literature,
theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a Stage (theatre), stage. The performe ...
, dance,
film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
and
music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...
. Paris became a gathering place for a group of Expressionist artists, many of Jewish origin, dubbed the
School of Paris The School of Paris (, ) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a centre o ...
. After World War II, figurative expressionism influenced artists and styles around the world. The term is sometimes suggestive of angst. In a historical sense, much older painters such as Matthias Grünewald and El Greco are sometimes termed expressionist, though the term is applied mainly to 20th-century works. The Expressionist emphasis on individual and subjective perspective has been characterized as a reaction to
positivism Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positivemeaning '' a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, ''Soci ...
and other artistic styles such as Naturalism and
Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
.


Etymology and history

While the word expressionist was used in the modern sense as early as 1850, its origin is sometimes traced to paintings exhibited in 1901 in Paris by obscure artist Julien-Auguste Hervé, which he called ''Expressionismes''. An alternative view is that the term was coined by the Czech art historian Antonin Matějček in 1910 as the opposite of
Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
: "An Expressionist wishes, above all, to express himself... (an Expressionist rejects) immediate perception and builds on more complex
psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use powers rooted in parapsychology, such as extrasensory perception (ESP), to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance; or who performs acts that a ...
structures... Impressions and mental images that pass through ... people's soul as through a filter which rids them of all substantial accretions to produce their clear essence ..andare assimilated and condensed into more general forms, into types, which he transcribes through simple short-hand formulae and symbols." Important precursors of Expressionism were the German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche bec ...
(1844–1900), especially his philosophical novel '' Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' (1883–1892); the later plays of the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg (1849–1912), including the trilogy '' To Damascus'' (1898–1901), '' A Dream Play'' (1902), '' The Ghost Sonata'' (1907);
Frank Wedekind Benjamin Franklin Wedekind (July 24, 1864 – March 9, 1918) was a German playwright. His work, which often criticizes bourgeois attitudes (particularly towards sex), is considered to anticipate expressionism and was influential in the developme ...
(1864–1918), especially the "Lulu" plays ''Erdgeist'' (''Earth Spirit'') (1895) and ''Die Büchse der Pandora'' (''Pandora's Box'') (1904); the American poet Walt Whitman's (1819–1892) ''Leaves of Grass'' (1855–1891); the Russian novelist
Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature, and many of his works are considered highly influent ...
(1821–1881); Norwegian painter
Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( ; ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His 1893 work ''The Scream'' has become one of Western art's most acclaimed images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dread of inher ...
(1863–1944); Dutch painter
Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...
(1853–1890); Belgian painter James Ensor (1860–1949); and pioneering Austrian psychoanalyst
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...
(1856–1939). In 1905, a group of four German artists, led by
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German Expressionism, expressionist Painting, painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expr ...
, formed Die Brücke (the Bridge) in the city of Dresden. This was arguably the founding organization for the German Expressionist movement, though they did not use the word itself. A few years later, in 1911, a like-minded group of young artists formed Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in Munich. The name came from
Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...
's ''Der Blaue Reiter'' painting of 1903. Among their members were Kandinsky, Franz Marc,
Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...
, and August Macke. However, the term Expressionism did not firmly establish itself until 1913. Though mainly a German artistic movement initially and most predominant in painting, poetry and the theatre between 1910 and 1930, most precursors of the movement were not German. Furthermore, there have been expressionist writers of prose fiction, as well as non-German-speaking expressionist writers, and, while the movement declined in Germany with the rise of
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
in the 1930s, there were subsequent expressionist works. Expressionism is notoriously difficult to define, in part because it "overlapped with other major 'isms' of the modernist period: with
Futurism Futurism ( ) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the ...
, Vorticism, Cubism,
Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
and
Dadaism Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...
." Richard Murphy also comments, “the search for an all-inclusive definition is problematic to the extent that the most challenging expressionists such as Kafka, Gottfried Benn and Döblin were simultaneously the most vociferous 'anti-expressionists.'" What can be said, however, is that it was a movement that developed in the early twentieth century, mainly in Germany, in reaction to the dehumanizing effect of industrialization and the growth of cities, and that "one of the central means by which expressionism identifies itself as an
avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...
movement, and by which it marks its distance to traditions and the cultural institution as a whole is through its relationship to realism and the dominant conventions of representation." More explicitly, that the expressionists rejected the ideology of realism. The term refers to an "artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person". It is arguable that all artists are expressive but there are many examples of art production in Europe from the 15th century onward which emphasize extreme emotion. Such art often occurs during times of social upheaval and war, such as the
Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...
, German Peasants' War, and
Eighty Years' War The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt (; 1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish Empire, Spanish government. The Origins of the Eighty Years' War, causes of the w ...
between the Spanish and the Netherlands, when extreme violence, much directed at civilians, was represented in propagandist popular prints. These were often unimpressive aesthetically but had the capacity to arouse extreme emotions in the viewer. Expressionism has been likened to
Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
by critics such as art historian Michel Ragon and German philosopher
Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...
. According to Alberto Arbasino, a difference between the two is that "Expressionism doesn't shun the violently unpleasant effect, while Baroque does. Expressionism throws some terrific 'fuck yous', Baroque doesn't. Baroque is well-mannered."


Notable Expressionists

Some of the style's main visual artists of the early 20th century were: * Argentina: Xul Solar * Armenia: Martiros Saryan * Australia: Sidney Nolan, Charles Blackman, John Perceval, Albert Tucker, and Joy Hester. Another prominent artist who came from the German Expressionist "school" was Bremen-born Wolfgang Degenhardt. After working as a commercial artist in Bremen, he migrated to Australia in 1954 and became quite well known in the Hunter Valley region. * Austria: Richard Gerstl, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Josef Gassler and Alfred Kubin * Belgium: Marcel Caron,
Anto Carte Antoine "Anto" Carte (8 December 1886 - 15 February 1954) was a Belgian painter. Antoine Carto was born in Mons in 1886. His father was a joiner. Anto Carte was first apprenticed to François Depooter, an interior painter, and then studied art ...
, and Auguste Mambour, and the Flemish Expressionists: Constant Permeke, Gustave De Smet, Frits Van den Berghe, James Ensor, Albert Servaes, Floris Jespers and Gustave Van de Woestijne. * Brazil: Anita Malfatti, Cândido Portinari, Di Cavalcanti, Iberê Camargo and Lasar Segall. * Denmark: Einer Johansen, Jens Søndergaard, Oluf Høst * Estonia: Konrad Mägi, Eduard Wiiralt, Kuno Veeber * Finland: Tyko Sallinen, Alvar Cawén, and Wäinö Aaltonen. * France: Frédéric Fiebig, Georges Rouault, Alexandre Frenel, Georges Gimel, Gen Paul, Marie-Thérèse Auffray, Jacques Démoulin and Bernard Buffet. * Germany: Ernst Barlach,
Max Beckmann Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, drawing, draftsman, printmaker, sculpture, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the m ...
, Fritz Bleyl, Heinrich Campendonk, Otto Dix, Conrad Felixmüller, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Carl Hofer, Max Kaus,
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German Expressionism, expressionist Painting, painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expr ...
, Käthe Kollwitz, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, August Macke, Franz Marc, Ludwig Meidner, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Otto Mueller, Gabriele Münter, Rolf Nesch, Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, Christian Rohlfs, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Georg Tappert. * Greece: George Bouzianis * Hungary: Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry * Iceland: Einar Hákonarson * Ireland: Jack B. Yeats * Indonesia: Affandi * Israel: Isaac Frenkel Frenel * Italy:
Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (; ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor of the École de Paris who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern art, modern style characterized by a surre ...
, Emilio Giuseppe Dossena * Japan: Kōshirō Onchi * Lebanon: Rafic Charaf * Mexico: Mathias Goeritz (German émigré to Mexico), Rufino Tamayo * Netherlands: Willem Hofhuizen, Herman Kruyder, Jan Sluyters,
Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...
, Jan Wiegers and Hendrik Werkman * Norway:
Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( ; ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His 1893 work ''The Scream'' has become one of Western art's most acclaimed images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dread of inher ...
, Kai Fjell * Poland: Henryk Gotlib * Portugal: Mário Eloy, Amadeo de Souza Cardoso * Russia:
Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...
,
Marc Chagall Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...
, Chaïm Soutine, Alexej von Jawlensky, Natalia Goncharova, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, and Marianne von Werefkin (Russian-born, later active in Germany and Switzerland). * Romania: Horia Bernea * Serbia: Nadežda Petrović * South Africa: Maggie Laubser, Irma Stern * Spain Ignacio Zuloaga, José Gutiérrez Solana, Julio Romero de Torres * Sweden: Leander Engström, Isaac Grünewald, Axel Törneman * Switzerland: Carl Eugen Keel, Cuno Amiet,
Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...
* Ukraine: Alexis Gritchenko (Ukraine-born, most active in France), Vadim Meller * United Kingdom:
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...
, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Lucian Freud, Patrick Heron, John Hoyland, Howard Hodgkin, John Walker * United States: Ivan Albright, David Aronson,
Milton Avery Milton Clark Avery (; March 7, 1885 – January 3, 1965Haskell, B. (2003). "Avery, Milton". Grove Art Online.) was an American Modern art, modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City. He wa ...
, Leonard Baskin, George Biddle, Hyman Bloom, Peter Blume, Charles Burchfield,
David Burliuk David Davidovich Burliuk (; 21 July 1882 – 15 January 1967) was a Russian poet, artist and publicist of Ukrainian origin associated with the Futurism (art), Futurist and Neo-Primitivist movements. Burliuk has been described as "the father of ...
, Stuart Davis, Lyonel Feininger, Wilhelmina Weber Furlong, Elaine de Kooning,
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...
, Beauford Delaney, Arthur G. Dove, Norris Embry, Philip Evergood, Kahlil Gibran, William Gropper, Philip Guston, Marsden Hartley, Albert Kotin, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Rico Lebrun, Jack Levine, Alfred Henry Maurer, Robert Motherwell, Alice Neel, Abraham Rattner, Esther Rolick, Ben Shahn, Harry Shoulberg, Joseph Stella,
Harry Sternberg Harry Sternberg (1904–2001), was an American Painting, painter, printmaking, printmaker and educator. He taught at the Art Students League of New York, from 1933 to c. 1966. Biography Childhood, family life, and education Sternberg's parents h ...
,
Henry Ossawa Tanner Henry Ossawa Tanner (June 21, 1859 – May 25, 1937) was an American artist who spent much of his career in France. He became the first African-American art, African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Paris, France, ...
, Dorothea Tanning, Steffen Thomas, Wilhelmina Weber,
Max Weber Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...
, Hale Woodruff, Karl Zerbe. * Uruguay: Rafael Barradas


Groups of painters


In Germany and Austria

The style originated principally in Germany and Austria. There were groups of expressionist painters, including Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke. Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider, named after a painting) was based in Munich and Die Brücke (The Bridge) was originally based in
Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...
(some members moved to
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
). Die Brücke was active for a longer period than Der Blaue Reiter, which was only together for a year (1912). The Expressionists were influenced by artists and sources including Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh and
African art African art encompasses modern and historical paintings, sculptures, installations, and other visual cultures originating from indigenous African diaspora, African communities across the African continent. The definition may also include the ar ...
. They were also aware of the work being done by the Fauves in Paris, who influenced Expressionism's tendency toward arbitrary colours and jarring compositions. In reaction and opposition to French Impressionism, which emphasized the rendering of the visual appearance of objects, Expressionist artists sought to portray emotions and subjective interpretations. It was not important to reproduce an aesthetically pleasing impression of the artistic subject matter, they felt, but rather to represent vivid emotional reactions by powerful colours and dynamic compositions. Kandinsky, the main artist of ''Der Blaue Reiter'', believed that with simple colours and shapes the spectator could perceive the moods and feelings in the paintings, a theory that encouraged him towards increased abstraction.


The School of Paris

In Paris a group of artists dubbed the '' École de Paris'' (
School of Paris The School of Paris (, ) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a centre o ...
) by André Warnod were also known for their expressionist art.'''' This was especially prevalent amongst the foreign born Jewish painters of the
School of Paris The School of Paris (, ) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a centre o ...
such as Chaim Soutine,
Marc Chagall Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...
,
Yitzhak Frenkel Yitzhak Frenkel (; 1899–1981), also known as Isaac Frenkel or Alexandre Frenel, was an Israeli painter, sculptor and teacher. He was one of the leading Jewish artists of the School of Paris, l’École de Paris and its chief practitioner in Is ...
, Abraham Mintchine and others. These artists' expressionism was described as restless and emotional by Frenkel. These artists, centered in the Montparnasse district of Paris tended to portray human subjects and humanity, evoking emotion through facial expression. Others focused on the expression of mood rather than a formal structure.Roditi, Eduard (1968). "The School of Paris". ''European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe'', 3(2), 13–20. The art of Jewish expressionists was characterized as dramatic and tragic, perhaps in connection to Jewish suffering following persecution and pogroms.


In the United States

The ideas of German expressionism influenced the work of American artist Marsden Hartley, who met Kandinsky in Germany in 1913. In late 1939, at the beginning of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
,
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
received many European artists. After the war, Expressionism influenced many young American artists. Norris Embry (1921–1981) studied with Oskar Kokoschka in 1947 and during the next 43 years produced a large body of work in the Expressionist tradition. Embry has been termed "the first American German Expressionist". Other American artists of the late 20th and early 21st century have developed distinct styles that may be considered part of Expressionism. After World War II, figurative expressionism influenced artists and styles around the world. In the U.S., American Expressionism and American Figurative Expressionism, particularly Boston Expressionism, were an integral part of American modernism around the Second World War. Thomas B. Hess wrote that "the ‘New figurative painting’ which some have been expecting as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism was implicit in it at the start, and is one of its most lineal continuities." * Major figurative Boston Expressionists included: Karl Zerbe, Hyman Bloom, Jack Levine, David Aronson. The Boston Expressionists persisted after World War II despite their marginalization by the development of abstract expressionism centered in New York City, and are currently in the third generation. * New York Figurative Expressionism of the 1950s represented New York figurative artists such as Robert Beauchamp, Elaine de Kooning, Robert Goodnough, Grace Hartigan, Lester Johnson, Alex Katz, George McNeil (artist), Jan Muller, Fairfield Porter, Gregorio Prestopino, Larry Rivers and Bob Thompson. *
Lyrical Abstraction Lyrical abstraction arose from either of two related but distinct art movement, trends in Post-war Modernist painting: * European ''Abstraction Lyrique'': a movement that emerged in Paris, with the French art critic Jean José Marchand being cr ...
, Tachisme of the 1940s and 1950s in Europe represented by artists such as Georges Mathieu, Hans Hartung, Nicolas de Staël and others. * Bay Area Figurative Movement represented by early figurative expressionists from the San Francisco area Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, and David Park. The movement from 1950 to 1965 was joined by Theophilus Brown, Paul Wonner, Hassel Smith, Nathan Oliveira, Jay DeFeo, Joan Brown, Manuel Neri, Frank Lobdell, and Roland Peterson. * Abstract expressionism of the 1950s represented American artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Hans Burkhardt, Mary Callery, Nicolas Carone,
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...
,
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...
, Philip Guston, and others that participated with figurative expressionism. * Sōsaku-hanga (創作版画 "creative prints") was an expressionist woodblock print movement in early 20th century Japan. The movement was characterized by the work of Kanae Yamamoto (artist), Kōshirō Onchi, and many others. *
Lyrical Abstraction Lyrical abstraction arose from either of two related but distinct art movement, trends in Post-war Modernist painting: * European ''Abstraction Lyrique'': a movement that emerged in Paris, with the French art critic Jean José Marchand being cr ...
in the United States and Canada beginning during the late 1960s and the 1970s. Characterized by the work of Dan Christensen, Peter Young, Ronnie Landfield, Ronald Davis, Larry Poons, Walter Darby Bannard, Charles Arnoldi, Pat Lipsky and many others. *
Neo-expressionism Neo-expressionism is a style of Late modernism, late modernist or early-Postmodern art, postmodern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called ''Transavantgarde'', ''Junge Wilde'' or ''Neue Wild ...
was an international revival style that began in the late 1970s and 1980s.


Representative paintings

File:Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Nollendorfplatz.jpg,
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German Expressionism, expressionist Painting, painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expr ...
, ''Nollendorfplatz'', 1912 File:August Macke 005.jpg, August Macke, ''Lady in a Green Jacket,'' 1913 File:Fighting Forms.jpg, Franz Marc, ''Fighting Forms'', 1914 File:Kirchner - Selbstbildnis als Soldat.jpg, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, ''Self-Portrait as a Soldier'', 1915 File:Chaïm Soutine - Vue de Céret.jpg, Chaïm Soutine - Vue de Céret 1922 File:Abraham Mintchine - Pierrot 1928.jpg, Abraham Mintchine - Pierrot 1928 File:Carcass of Beef by Chaim Soutine, c. 1925, Albright-Knox Art Gallery.jpg, Chaim Soutine - Carcass of Beef c. 1925


In other arts

The Expressionist movement included other types of culture, including dance, sculpture, cinema and theatre.


Dance

Exponents of expressionist dance included Mary Wigman, Rudolf von Laban, and Pina Bausch.


Sculpture

Some
sculptors Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...
used the Expressionist style, as for example Ernst Barlach. Other expressionist artists known mainly as painters, such as Erich Heckel, also worked with sculpture.


Cinema

There was an Expressionist style in German cinema, important examples of which are Robert Wiene's '' The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' (1920), Paul Wegener's '' The Golem: How He Came into the World'' (1920),
Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), better known as Fritz Lang (), was an Austrian-born film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety Obituari ...
's ''
Metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural area for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big city b ...
'' (1927) and F. W. Murnau's '' Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror'' (1922) and '' The Last Laugh'' (1924). The term "expressionist" is also sometimes used to refer to stylistic devices thought to resemble those of German Expressionism, such as
film noir Film noir (; ) is a style of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood Crime film, crime dramas that emphasizes cynicism (contemporary), cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of Ameri ...
cinematography or the style of several of the films of
Ingmar Bergman Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film and theatre director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential film directors of all time, his films have been described as "profoun ...
. More generally, the term expressionism can be used to describe cinematic styles of great artifice, such as the technicolor melodramas of Douglas Sirk or the sound and visual design of
David Lynch David Keith Lynch (January 20, 1946 – January 16, 2025) was an American filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and actor. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Lynch was often called a "visionary" and received acclaim f ...
's films.


Literature


Journals

Two leading Expressionist journals published in Berlin were '' Der Sturm'', published by Herwarth Walden starting in 1910, and '' Die Aktion'', which first appeared in 1911 and was edited by Franz Pfemfert. ''Der Sturm'' published poetry and prose from contributors such as Peter Altenberg, Max Brod, Richard Dehmel, Alfred Döblin, Anatole France,
Knut Hamsun Knut Hamsun (4 August 1859 – 19 February 1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to conscio ...
, Arno Holz, Karl Kraus, Selma Lagerlöf, Adolf Loos, Heinrich Mann, Paul Scheerbart, and René Schickele, and writings, drawings, and prints by such artists as Kokoschka, Kandinsky, and members of ''Der blaue Reiter''.


Drama

Oskar Kokoschka's 1909 playlet, ''Murderer, The Hope of Women'' is often termed the first expressionist drama. In it, an unnamed man and woman struggle for dominance. The man brands the woman; she stabs and imprisons him. He frees himself and she falls dead at his touch. As the play ends, he slaughters all around him (in the words of the text) "like mosquitoes." The extreme simplification of characters to mythic types, choral effects, declamatory dialogue and heightened intensity all would become characteristic of later expressionist plays. The German composer
Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...
created an operatic version of this play, which premiered in 1921. Expressionism was a dominant influence on 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. Important precursors were the Swedish playwright August Strindberg and German actor and dramatist Frank Wedekind. During the 1920s, Expressionism enjoyed a brief period of influence in American theatre, including the early modernist plays by
Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of Realism (theatre), realism, earlier associated with ...
('' The Hairy Ape'', '' The Emperor Jones'' and ''The Great God Brown''), Sophie Treadwell ('' Machinal'') and Elmer Rice ('' The Adding Machine''). Expressionist plays often dramatise the spiritual awakening and sufferings of their protagonists. Some utilise an episodic dramatic structure and are known as ''Stationendramen'' (station plays), modeled on the presentation of the suffering and death of
Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
in the Stations of the Cross. Strindberg had pioneered this form with his autobiographical trilogy '' To Damascus''. These plays also often dramatise the struggle against bourgeois values and established authority, frequently personified by the Father. In Sorge's ''The Beggar'', (''Der Bettler''), for example, the young hero's mentally ill father raves about the prospect of mining the riches of Mars and is finally poisoned by his son. In Bronnen's '' Parricide'' (''Vatermord''), the son stabs his tyrannical father to death, only to have to fend off the frenzied sexual overtures of his mother. In Expressionist drama, the speech may be either expansive and rhapsodic, or clipped and telegraphic. Director Leopold Jessner became famous for his expressionistic productions, often set on stark, steeply raked flights of stairs (having borrowed the idea from the Symbolist director and designer, Edward Gordon Craig). Staging was especially important in Expressionist drama, with directors forgoing the illusion of reality to block actors in as close to two-dimensional movement. Directors also made heavy use of lighting effects to create stark contrast and as another method to heavily emphasize emotion and convey the play or a scene's message. German expressionist playwrights: * Georg Kaiser (1878) * Ernst Toller (1893–1939) * Hans Henny Jahnn (1894–1959) * Reinhard Sorge (1892–1916) *
Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...
(1898–1956) Playwrights influenced by Expressionism: * Seán O'Casey (1880–1964) *
Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of Realism (theatre), realism, earlier associated with ...
(1885–1953) * Elmer Rice (1892–1967) * Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) * Arthur Miller (1915–2005) *
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
(1906–1989)


Poetry

Among the poets associated with German Expressionism were: * Jakob van Hoddis * Georg Trakl * Walter Rheiner * Gottfried Benn * Georg Heym * Else Lasker-Schüler * Ernst Stadler * August Stramm *
Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an Idiosyncrasy, idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as ...
(1875–1926): ''The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge'' (1910) * Geo Milev Other poets influenced by expressionism: * T. S. Eliot * Rudolf Broby-Johansen * Tom Kristensen * Pär Lagerkvist * Edith Södergran


Prose

In prose, the early stories and novels of Alfred Döblin were influenced by Expressionism, and
Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...
is sometimes labelled an Expressionist. Some further writers and works that have been called Expressionist include: *
Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...
(1883–1924): " The Metamorphosis" (1915), '' The Trial'' (1925), '' The Castle'' (1926) * Alfred Döblin (1878–1957): ''Berlin Alexanderplatz'' (1929) * Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957) * Djuna Barnes (1892–1982): '' Nightwood'' (1936) * Malcolm Lowry (1909–1957): '' Under the Volcano'' (1947) *
Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
*
James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...
(1882–1941): "The Nighttown" section of '' Ulysses'' (1922) * Patrick White (1912–1990) * D. H. Lawrence * Sheila Watson: '' Double Hook'' *
Elias Canetti Elias Canetti (; 25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994; ; ) was a German-language writer, known as a Literary modernism, modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and nonfiction writer. Born in Ruse, Bulgaria, to a Sephardi Jews, Sephardic Jewish fam ...
: '' Auto-da-Fé'' * Thomas Pynchon *
William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...
* James Hanley (1897–1985) * Raul Brandão (1867–1930): ''Húmus'' (1917) * Leonid Andreyev (1871–1919): ''Devil's Diary'' (1919)


Music

The term expressionism "was probably first applied to music in 1918, especially to Schoenberg", because like the painter Kandinsky he avoided "traditional forms of beauty" to convey powerful feelings in his music.
Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...
,
Anton Webern Anton Webern (; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its lyric poetry, lyrical, poetic concision and use of then novel atonality, aton ...
and Alban Berg, the members of the Second Viennese School, are important Expressionists (Schoenberg was also an expressionist painter). Other composers that have been associated with expressionism are Krenek (the Second Symphony),
Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...
(''The Young Maiden''),
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...
(''Japanese Songs''), Alexander Scriabin (late piano sonatas) (Adorno 2009, 275). Another significant expressionist was
Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...
in early works, written in the second decade of the 20th century, such as '' Bluebeard's Castle'' (1911), '' The Wooden Prince'' (1917), and '' The Miraculous Mandarin'' (1919). Important precursors of expressionism are
Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...
(1813–1883),
Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic music, Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and ...
(1860–1911), and
Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; ; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer and conductor best known for his Tone poems (Strauss), tone poems and List of operas by Richard Strauss, operas. Considered a leading composer of the late Roman ...
(1864–1949).
Theodor Adorno Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor. List of people with the given name Theodor * Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher * Theodor Aman, Romanian painter * Theodor Blue ...
describes expressionism as concerned with the unconscious, and states that "the depiction of fear lies at the centre" of expressionist music, with dissonance predominating, so that the "harmonious, affirmative element of art is banished" (Adorno 2009, 275–76). '' Erwartung'' and ''Die Glückliche Hand'', by Schoenberg, and '' Wozzeck'', an opera by Alban Berg (based on the play '' Woyzeck'' by Georg Büchner), are examples of Expressionist works. If one were to draw an analogy from paintings, one may describe the expressionist painting technique as the distortion of reality (mostly colors and shapes) to create a nightmarish effect for the particular painting as a whole. Expressionist music roughly does the same thing, where the dramatically increased dissonance creates, aurally, a nightmarish atmosphere.


Architecture

In architecture, two specific buildings are identified as Expressionist: Bruno Taut's Glass Pavilion of the
Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...
Werkbund Exhibition (1914), and Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower in
Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
, Germany completed in 1921. The interior of Hans Poelzig's Berlin theatre (the Grosse Schauspielhaus), designed for the director Max Reinhardt, is also cited sometimes. The influential architectural critic and historian
Sigfried Giedion Sigfried Giedion (also spelled Siegfried Giedion; 14 April 1888, Prague – 10 April 1968, Zürich) was a Bohemian-born Swiss historian and critic of architecture. His ideas and books, '' Space, Time and Architecture'', and ''Mechanization ...
, in his book ''Space, Time and Architecture'' (1941), dismissed Expressionist architecture as a part of the development of functionalism. In Mexico, in 1953, German émigré Mathias Goeritz published the ''Arquitectura Emocional'' ("Emotional Architecture") manifesto with which he declared that "architecture's principal function is emotion".Mathias Goeritz, "El manifiesto de arquitectura emocional", in Lily Kassner, Mathias Goeritz, UNAM, 2007, p. 272-273 Modern Mexican architect Luis Barragán adopted the term that influenced his work. The two of them collaborated in the project Torres de Satélite (1957–58) guided by Goeritz's principles of ''Arquitectura Emocional''. It was only during the 1970s that Expressionism in architecture came to be re-evaluated more positively.


See also

* Post-expressionism * New Objectivity *
History of Painting The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts and artwork created by pre-historic artists, and spans all cultures. It represents a continuous, though periodically disrupted, tradition from Antiquity. Across cultures, continents, and ...
* Western Painting


References


Further reading

* Antonín Matějček cited in Gordon, Donald E. (1987). ''Expressionism: Art and Idea'', p. 175. New Haven:
Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...
. * Frank Krause (ed.), ''Expressionism and Gender'' / ''Expressionismus und Geschlecht''. Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2010, ISBN 3899717171 * Jonah F. Mitchell (Berlin, 2003). Doctoral thesis ''Expressionism between Western modernism and Teutonic Sonderweg.'' Courtesy of the author. *
Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche bec ...
(1872). ''The Birth of Tragedy Out of The Spirit of Music.'' Trans. Clifton P. Fadiman. New York: Dover, 1995. . * Judith Bookbinder
''Boston modern: figurative expressionism as alternative modernism,''
(Durham, N.H.: University of New Hampshire Press; Hanover: University Press of New England, ©2005.) , * Bram Dijkstra
''American expressionism: art and social change, 1920–1950,''
(New York: H.N. Abrams, in association with the Columbus Museum of Art, 2003.) , * Ditmar Elger ''Expressionism-A Revolution in German Art'' * Paul Schimmel and Judith E Stein
''The Figurative fifties: New York figurative expressionism, The Other Tradition''
(Newport Beach, California: Newport Harbor Art Museum: New York: Rizzoli, 1988.) * Marika Herskovic
''American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism: Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless''
(New York School Press, 2009.) .
Lakatos Gabriela Luciana, Expressionism Today, University of Art and Design Cluj Napoca, 2011


External links



– a turbulent history of the group by Christian Saehrendt at ''signandsight.com''

– a free resource with paintings from German expressionists (high-quality) (archived 20 February 2006) {{Authority control German literary movements