Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Czardas dancers - Google Art Project

Expressionism is a

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

movement Movement may refer to: Generic uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Movement (sign language), a hand movement when signing * Motion, commonly referred to as movement * Movement (music), a division of a larger co ...

, 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

Northern Europe The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describe northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54th parallel north, 54°N, or may be based on other ge ...

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 Expressionist architecture was an architectural movement in Europe during the first decades of the 20th century in parallel with the expressionism, expressionist visual and performing arts that especially developed and dominated in Germany. Bri ...

, 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 Angst is a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity. ''Anguish'' is its Romance languages, Latinate cognate, equivalent, and the words ''anxious'' and ''anxiety'' are of similar origin. Etymology The word ''angst'' was introduced in ...

. In a historical sense, much older painters such as

Matthias Grünewald Matthias Grünewald ( – 31 August 1528; also known as Mathis Gothart Nithart) was a German Renaissance painter of religious works who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th cent ...

and

El Greco Doménikos Theotokópoulos (, ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco (; "The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance, regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. ...

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

: "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 Philosophical fiction is any fiction that devotes a significant portion of its content to the sort of questions addressed by philosophy. It might explore any facet of the human condition, including the function and role of society, the nature and ...

Thus Spoke Zarathustra ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None'' (), also translated as ''Thus Spake Zarathustra'', is a work of philosophical fiction written by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche; it was published in four volumes between 1883 and 1885. ...

'' (1883–1892); the later plays of the Swedish dramatist

August Strindberg Johan August Strindberg (; ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than 60 pla ...

(1849–1912), including the trilogy ''

To Damascus ''To Damascus'' (), also known as ''The Road to Damascus'', is a trilogy of plays by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The first two parts were published in 1898, with the third following in 1904. It has been described as "Strindberg's most ...

'' (1898–1901), ''

A Dream Play ''A Dream Play'' (), sometimes staged in English as ''The Dream Play'', is a fantasy play in 14 scenes written in 1901 by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. It was published in Swedish in 1902 and first performed in Stockholm on 17 April ...

'' (1902), ''

The Ghost Sonata ''The Ghost Sonata'' () is a play in three acts by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. Written in 1907, it was first produced at Strindberg's Intimate Theatre in Stockholm on 21 January 1908. Since then, it has been staged by such notable ...

'' (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 Walter Whitman Jr. (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist; he also wrote two novels. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and world literature. Whitman incor ...

'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 James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life. He was associated with the artistic ...

(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 Die Brücke (The Bridge), also known as Künstlergruppe Brücke or KG Brücke, was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905. The founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Karl Schmidt-R ...

(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 ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (''The Blue Rider'') was a group of artists and a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name ...

(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 Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc (8 February 1880 – 4 March 1916) was a German painter and printmaking, printmaker, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider), a journal whose ...

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 August Robert Ludwig Macke (3 January 1887 – 26 September 1914) was a German Expressionist painter. He was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). He lived during a particularly activ ...

. 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 Vorticism was a London-based Modernism, modernist art movement formed in 1914 by the writer and artist Wyndham Lewis. The movement was partially inspired by Cubism and was introduced to the public by means of the publication of the Vorticist mani ...

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

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 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 real ...

Gottfried Benn Gottfried Benn (2 May 1886 – 7 July 1956) was a German poet, essayist, and physician. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. He was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1951. Biography and work Family and beginnings G ...

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

movement, and by which it marks its distance to traditions and the cultural institution as a whole is through its relationship to

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *American Realism *Classical Realism *Liter ...

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 The German Peasants' War, Great Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt () was a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It was Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising befor ...

, 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 print Popular prints is a term for printing, printed images of generally low artistic quality which were sold cheaply in Europe and later the New World from the 15th to 18th centuries, often with text as well as images. They were some of the earliest e ...

s. 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 Xul Solar was the adopted name of Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schulz Solari (14 December 1887 – 9 April 1963), an Argentine painter, sculptor, writer, and inventor of imaginary languages. Biography Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schulz Solari was born ...

* Armenia:

Martiros Saryan Martiros Saryan (; ; – 5 May 1972) was an Armenian painter, People's Artist of the USSR (1960), member of the USSR Academy of Fine Arts (1947), president of the Artists' Union of Soviet Armenia (1945-1951), the founder of a modern Armenian nat ...

* Australia:

Sidney Nolan Sir Sidney Robert Nolan (22 April 191728 November 1992) was one of the leading Australian artists of the 20th century. Working in a wide variety of media, his oeuvre is among the most diverse and prolific in all of modern art. He is best known ...

Charles Blackman Charles Raymond Blackman (12 August 1928 – 20 August 2018) was an Australian painter, noted for the ''Schoolgirl, Avonsleigh'' and ''Alice in Wonderland'' series of the 1950s. He was a member of the Antipodeans, a group of Melbourne painte ...

John Perceval John de Burgh Perceval AO (1 February 1923 – 15 October 2000) was a well-known Australian artist. Perceval was the last surviving member of a group known as the Angry Penguins who redefined Australian art in the 1940s. Other members includ ...

, Albert Tucker, and

Joy Hester Joy St Clair Hester (21 August 1920 – 4 December 1960) was an Australian artist. She was a member of the Angry Penguins movement and the Heide Circle who played an integral role in the development of Australian Modernism. Hester is best known ...

. Another prominent artist who came from the German Expressionist "school" was Bremen-born

Wolfgang Degenhardt Wolfgang Degenhardt (19 May 1924 – 8 November 1993) was an artist, prominent in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. Husband of Irene Degenhardt (17 August 1921 – 22 March 2016). Degenhardt was born in Germany, studied art in Bremen and M ...

. After working as a commercial artist in Bremen, he migrated to Australia in 1954 and became quite well known in the

Hunter Valley The Hunter Region, also commonly known as the Hunter Valley, Newcastle Region, or simply Hunter, spans the region in northern New South Wales, Australia, extending from approximately to north of Sydney. It contains the Hunter River and its ...

region. * Austria:

Richard Gerstl Richard Gerstl (14 September 1883 – 4 November 1908) was an Austrian painter and draughtsman known for his expressive psychologically insightful portraits, his lack of critical acclaim during his lifetime, and his affair with the wife of Arnol ...

Egon Schiele Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele (; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painters, painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude sel ...

Oskar Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright and teacher, best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expre ...

, Josef Gassler and

Alfred Kubin Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin (10 April 1877 – 20 August 1959) was an Austrian artist, printmaker, illustrator, and occasional writer. Kubin is considered an important representative of Symbolism and Expressionism. Biography Kubin was born i ...

* 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 Constant Permeke (; 31 July 1886 – 4 January 1952) was a Belgian painter and sculptor who is considered the leading figure of Flemish Expressionism. Biography Permeke was born in Antwerp but when he was six years old the family moved to Ost ...

Gustave De Smet Gustave Franciscus De Smet (21 January 1877 – 8 October 1943) was a Belgian painter. Together with Constant Permeke and Frits Van den Berghe, he was one of the founders of Flemish Expressionism. His younger brother, , also became a painter. ...

Frits Van den Berghe Frits Van den Berghe (3 April 1883 – 23 September 1939) was a Belgian Expressionism, expressionist and Surrealism, surrealist Painting, painter and illustrator. Biography He was born in Ghent, where his father was the Librarian at the Univers ...

Albert Servaes Albert Servaes (4 April 1883 – 19 April 1966) was a Belgian expressionist painter. He was associate with but not a member of the first Latem School of painting which focused on Mystical Realism. Servaes went in another artistic direction ...

Floris Jespers Floris Jespers (18 March 1889 in Borgerhout – 16 April 1965 in Antwerp) was a Belgian Avant-garde painter. After his graduation from the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts, he hooked up with the poet Paul Van Ostaijen and joined the Antwerp avant- ...

and

Gustave Van de Woestijne Gustave Van de Woestijne (; 2 August 1881 – 21 April 1947) was a Belgian expressionist painter. He belonged to the so-called "First Group of Latem", a group of artists who worked in the rural village of Sint-Martens-Latem on the banks of ...

. * Brazil:

Anita Malfatti Anita Catarina Malfatti (December 2, 1889 – November 6, 1964) is heralded as the first Brazilian artist to introduce European and American forms of Modernism to Brazil. Her solo exhibition in São Paulo, in 1917–1918, was controversial at t ...

Cândido Portinari Candido Portinari (December 29, 1903 – February 6, 1962) was a Brazilian painter. He is considered one of the most important Brazilian painters as well as a prominent and influential practitioner of the neo-realism style in painting. Portinari ...

, Di Cavalcanti,

Iberê Camargo Iberê Bassani Camargo (18 November 1914, in Restinga Seca – 8 August 1994, in Porto Alegre) was a Brazilian painter, one of the greatest expressionist artists from his country. Shortly after his death, the Iberê Camargo Foundation w ...

and

Lasar Segall Lasar Segall (July 21, 1891 – August 2, 1957) was a Lithuanian and Brazilian painter, engraver and sculptor. Segall's work is derived from impressionism, expressionism and modernism. His most significant themes were depictions of human suff ...

. * Denmark: Einer Johansen,

Jens Søndergaard Jens Søndergaard (October 4, 1895 – May 21, 1957) was a Danish expressionist painter. He specialised in strongly coloured landscapes depicting his feelings for the power of nature and the sea. Søndergaard won both national and international ...

Oluf Høst Oluf Høst (18 March 1884 – 14 May 1966) was a Danish Expressionist painter, the only member of the Bornholm school who was a native Bornholmer. Although he studied in Copenhagen, he returned to the Danish island of Bornholm in 1929 where ...

* Estonia:

Konrad Mägi Konrad Vilhelm Mägi (1 November 1878 – 15 August 1925) was an Estonian painter; one of the first modernist painters in Estonia and the Nordic countries, at the core of whose creative legacy are visionary landscapes. He only worked for sixtee ...

, Eduard Wiiralt,

Kuno Veeber Kuno Veeber (18 February 1898 – 1 January 1929) was an Estonian painter and graphic artist whose career began in the late 1910s. Early life Kuno Veeber was born Kuno Bernard Weber at Adila, Estonia, Adila manor, Hageri Parish (now part of Kohil ...

* Finland: Tyko Sallinen,

Alvar Cawén Frans Alvar Alfred Cawén (8 June 1886, Korpilahti - 3 March 1935 Helsinki) was a Finnish expressionist painter. Biography Frans Alvar Alfred Cawen was born in central Finland on 8 June 1886 at Korpilahti, the son of the Revd. Frans Cawen and ...

, and

Wäinö Aaltonen Wäinö Valdemar Aaltonen (8 March 1894 – 30 May 1966) was a Finnish artist and sculptor. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary describes him as "one of the leading Finnish sculptors". He was born to a tailor in the village of Karinainen, Finl ...

. * France: Frédéric Fiebig,

Georges Rouault Georges-Henri Rouault (; 27 May 1871, Paris - 13 February 1958, Paris) was a French painter, draughtsman, and printmaker, whose work is often associated with Fauvism and Expressionism. Childhood and education Rouault was born into a poor famil ...

, Alexandre Frenel,

Georges Gimel Georges Gimel (March 8, 1898 – January 21, 1962), was a French expressionist painter of portraits, landscapes, mountain landscapes, still lifes and flowers. He was also a wood carver, lithographer, illustrator, set designer, sculptor, and ...

Gen Paul Gen Paul (July 2, 1895 – April 30, 1975) was a French painter and engraver. Biography Born as Eugène Paul in a house in Montmartre on the Rue Lepic painted by Van Gogh, he began drawing and painting as a child. His father died when he was o ...

Marie-Thérèse Auffray Marie-Thérèse Auffray (11 October 1912 – 27 September 1990) was a French painter and fighter in the French Resistance during World War II. She began her career in the 14th arrondissement of Paris and was known for her expressionist works. Sh ...

, Jacques Démoulin and

Bernard Buffet Bernard Buffet (; 10 July 1928 – 4 October 1999) was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor. An extremely prolific artist, he produced a varied and extensive body of work. His style was exclusively figurative and is often classified as Exp ...

. * Germany:

Ernst Barlach Ernst Heinrich Barlach (2 January 1870 – 24 October 1938) was a German Expressionism, expressionist sculptor, medallist, printmaker and writer. Although he was a supporter of the war in the years leading to World War I, his participation in th ...

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 Hilmar Friedrich Wilhelm Bleyl, known as Fritz Bleyl (8 October 1880 – 19 August 1966), was a German artist of the Expressionist school, and one of the four founders of artist group Die Brücke ("The Bridge"). He designed graphics fo ...

Heinrich Campendonk Heinrich Mathias Ernst Campendonk (3 November 1889 – 9 May 1957) was a painter and graphic designer born in Germany who became a naturalized Dutch citizen. Life Campendonk was born in Krefeld, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire. He was the son ...

Otto Dix Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and Printmaking, printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Alon ...

Conrad Felixmüller Conrad Felixmüller (21 May 1897 – 24 March 1977) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker. Born in Dresden as Conrad Felix Müller, he chose Felixmüller as his '' nom d'artiste''. Early life and career He attended drawing classes ...

George Grosz George Grosz (; ; born Georg Ehrenfried Groß; July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Obj ...

Erich Heckel Erich Heckel (31 July 1883 – 27 January 1970) was a German people, German Painting, painter and printmaker, and a founding member of the group ''Die Brücke'' ("The Bridge") which existed 1905–1913. His work was part of the art competition ...

, Carl Hofer, Max Kaus,

Käthe Kollwitz Käthe Kollwitz ( born Schmidt; 8 July 186722 April 1945) was a German artist who worked with painting, printmaking (including etching, lithography and woodcuts) and sculpture. Her most famous art cycles, including ''The Weavers'' and ''The Peasa ...

Wilhelm Lehmbruck Wilhelm Lehmbruck (4 January 188125 March 1919) was a German sculpture, sculptor. One of the most important of his generation, he was influenced by realism (arts), realism and expressionism. Biography Born in Meiderich (part of Duisburg from 190 ...

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (born ''Anna Frieda Wächtler''; 4 December 1899 – 31 July 1940) was a German painter of the avant-garde whose works were banned as " degenerate art", and in some cases destroyed, in Nazi Germany. She became mentally ...

Ludwig Meidner Ludwig Meidner (18 April 1884 – 14 May 1966) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker born in Bernstadt, Silesia. Meidner is best known for his painted, drawn, and printed portraits and landscapes, but is especially noted for his ...

Paula Modersohn-Becker Paula Modersohn-Becker (8 February 1876 – 20 November 1907) was a German Expressionist painter of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She is noted for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portraits. She is conside ...

Otto Mueller Otto Melller (16 October 1874 – 24 September 1930) was a German painter and printmaker of the Die Brücke expressionist movement. Life and work Mueller was born in Liebau (now Lubawka, Kamienna Góra County), Kreis Landeshut, Silesia. ...

Gabriele Münter Gabriele Münter (19 February 1877 – 19 May 1962) was a German expressionist painter who was at the forefront of the Munich avant-garde in the early 20th century. She studied and lived with the painter Wassily Kandinsky and was a founding mem ...

Rolf Nesch Rolf (Emil Rudolf) Nesch (January 7, 1893 – October 27, 1975) was a German-born Norwegian expressionist artist, especially noted for his printmaking. Career Nesch was born at Esslingen am Neckar in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He was the son ...

Emil Nolde Emil Nolde (born Hans Emil Hansen; 7 August 1867 – 13 April 1956) was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of the early ...

Max Pechstein Hermann Max Pechstein (31 December 1881 – 29 June 1955) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and a member of the Die Brücke group. He fought on the Western Front during World War I and his art was classified as Degenerate A ...

Christian Rohlfs Christian Rohlfs (November 22, 1849 - January 8, 1938) was a German painter and printmaker, one of the important representatives of German expressionism. Early life and education He was born in Groß Niendorf, Kreis Segeberg in Prussia. He to ...

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (Karl Schmidt until 1905; 1 December 1884 – 10 August 1976) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker; he was one of the four founders of the artist group Die Brücke. Life and work Schmidt-Rottluff was born in R ...

and Georg Tappert. * Greece:

George Bouzianis George Bouzianis (; ; November 8, 1885 – October 23, 1959) was a major Greek expressionist painter. Biography Bouzianis was born November 8, 1885 in Athens, Greece and studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts from 1897 to 1906 wi ...

* Hungary:

Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry Tivadar may refer to: * Tivadar, Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County Tivadar is a village in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, in the Northern Great Plain region of eastern Hungary. Geography It covers an area of and has a population of 166 people a ...

* Iceland:

Einar Hákonarson Einar Hákonarson (born 14 January 1945, in Reykjavík, Iceland) is one of Iceland's best known artists. He is an expressionistic and figurative painter who brought the figure back into Icelandic painting in 1968. He is a pioneer in the Icelan ...

* Ireland: Jack B. Yeats * Indonesia:

Affandi Affandi (18 May 1907 – 23 May 1990) was an Indonesian artist. Born in Cirebon, West Java, as the son of R. Koesoema, who was a surveyor at a local sugar factory, Affandi finished his upper secondary school in Jakarta. He gave up his studies to p ...

* 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 , born in Tokyo, was a Japanese print-maker. He was the father of the '' sōsaku-hanga'' movement in twentieth century Japan, and a photographer. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics. Biogra ...

* Lebanon:

Rafic Charaf Rafic Charaf (Baalbek, Lebanon, 1932 – Beirut 2003) was a Lebanese painter. He studied at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts ALBA and, in 1955, obtained a scholarship from the Spanish government and went at the R ...

* Mexico:

Mathias Goeritz Werner Mathias Goeritz Brunner (4 April 1915, Danzig, German Empire – 4 August 1990, Mexico City) was a Mexican painter and sculptor of German people, German origin. After spending much of the 1940s in North Africa and Spain, he and his wife, ...

(German émigré to Mexico),

Rufino Tamayo Rufino del Carmen Arellanes Tamayo (August 25, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a Mexican painter of Zapotec peoples, Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico.Sullivan, 170-171Ades, 357 Tamayo was active in the mid-20th cen ...

* Netherlands: Willem Hofhuizen, Herman Kruyder,

Jan Sluyters Johannes Carolus Bernardus (Jan) Sluijters, or Sluyters (17 December 1881 in 's-Hertogenbosch – 8 May 1957 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch painter and co-founder of the Moderne Kunstkring. Sluijters (in English often spelled "Sluyters") was a leadin ...

, Jan Wiegers and Hendrik Werkman * Norway:

Kai Fjell Kai Breder Fjell (; March 2, 1907 – January 10, 1989) was a Norwegian painter, printmaker and scenographer. Personal life Fjell was born on a farm in the village Skoger near Drammen. His father was a farmer and a painter, Conrad Bendiks ...

* Poland: Henryk Gotlib * Portugal: Mário Eloy,

Amadeo de Souza Cardoso Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso (14 November 1887 – 25 October 1918) was a Portuguese painter. Belonging to the first generation of Portuguese modernist painters, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso stands out among all of them for the exceptional quality of ...

* Russia:

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 Chaïm Soutine (; ; ; 13 January 1893 – 9 August 1943) was a French painter of Belarusian-Jewish origin of the School of Paris, who made a major contribution to the Expressionist movement while living and working in Paris. Inspired by clas ...

Alexej von Jawlensky Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky (; 13 March 1864 – 15 March 1941), surname also spelt as Yavlensky, was a Russian expressionist painter active in Germany. He was a key member of the New Munich Artist's Association ( Neue Künstlervereinigung ...

Natalia Goncharova Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova (, ; 3 July 188117 October 1962) was a Russian avant-garde artist, painter, costume designer, writer, illustrator, and set designer. Goncharova's lifelong partner was fellow Russian avant-garde artist Mikhail Lariono ...

Mstislav Dobuzhinsky Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky or Dobujinsky (, ; August 14, 1875, Novgorod – November 20, 1957, New York City) was a Russian-Lithuanian artist noted for his cityscapes conveying the explosive growth and decay of the early 20th-century city ...

, and

Marianne von Werefkin Marianne von Werefkin (born Marianna Vladimirovna Veryovkina; , ; – 6 February 1938) was a Russian artist, whose work is celebrated as a central part of German Expressionism. Life and career In Russia 1860–1896 Werefkin was born to ...

(Russian-born, later active in Germany and Switzerland). * Romania:

Horia Bernea Horia Bernea (14 September 1938, Bucharest – 4 December 2000, Paris) was a Romanian painter, who is considered part of the Neo-Orthodox Movement. Between 1990 and 2000, he was director of the Museum of the Romanian Peasant (Muzeul Țăranulu ...

* Serbia:

Nadežda Petrović Nadežda Petrović ( sr-Cyrl, Надежда Петровић; 11/12 October 1873 – 3 April 1915) was a Serbian painter and one of the women war photography pioneers in the region. Considered Serbia's most famous expressionist and fauvis ...

* South Africa:

Maggie Laubser Maria Magdalena Laubser (; 14 April 1886 – 17 May 1973) was a South African painter and printmaker. She is generally considered, along with Irma Stern, to be responsible for the introduction of Expressionism to South Africa. Her work was in ...

Irma Stern Irma Analize Stern (2 October 1894 – 23 August 1966) was a South African artist who achieved national and international recognition in her lifetime. Life Stern was born in Schweizer-Reneke, a small town in the Transvaal, of German-Jewish pa ...

* Spain

Ignacio Zuloaga Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta (July 26, 1870October 31, 1945) was a Spanish painter, born in Eibar, Guipuzcoa, near the monastery of Loyola. Family He was the son of metalworker and damascening, damascener Plácido Zuloaga and grandson of the orga ...

José Gutiérrez Solana José Romano Gutiérrez-Solana y Gutiérrez-Solana (28 February 1886, Madrid – 24 June 1945, Madrid) was a Spanish painter, engraver, and author. He usually signed his paintings as "J. Solana". Generally, he is considered to be an Expressio ...

Julio Romero de Torres Julio Romero de Torres (9 November 1874 – 10 May 1930) was a Spanish painter. His brothers, Rafael and , also became painters. Biography He was the son of Rafael Romero Barros, a painter who served as Director of the Fine Arts Museum o ...

* Sweden:

Leander Engström Per Leander Engström, sometimes denoted as The Elder (27 February 1886 – 6 February 1927) was a Swedish painter. He specialized in portraits and colorful wilderness scenes in the Expressionist style. Biography Engström was born in 1886 in Yt ...

Isaac Grünewald Isaac Grünewald (2 September 1889 – 22 May 1946) was a Swedish people, Swedish-Jewish expressionist Painting, painter born in Stockholm. He was the leading and central name in the first generation of Swedish modernists from 1910 up until h ...

Axel Törneman Johan Axel Gustaf Törneman (28 October 1880 – 26 December 1925) was one of Sweden's earliest modern art, modernist painters. Born in Persberg, Värmland, in Sweden, he grew to work in several modernist styles, was one of the first Swedish Ex ...

* Switzerland:

Carl Eugen Keel Carl Eugen Keel (1885–1961) was a Swiss painter. He is principally known for his woodcuts, usually portraying town life, and often hand-coloured. He also produced oil paintings, watercolours, wood carvings, lino cuts and wrought iron sculptures ...

Cuno Amiet Cuno Amiet (28 March 1868 – 6 July 1961) was a Swiss painter, illustrator, graphic artist and sculptor. As the first Swiss painter to give precedence to colour in composition, he was a pioneer of modern art in Switzerland. Biography Amiet was ...

* Ukraine:

Alexis Gritchenko Alexis Gritchenko (Ukrainian: Оле́кса Гри́щенко; born April 2, 1883 – January 28, 1977) was a Ukrainian painter and art theorist. Biography Education and early career Gritchenko studied philology and biology at the uni ...

(Ukraine-born, most active in France),

Vadim Meller Vadym Heorhiiovych Meller (; 26 April 1884 – 4 May 1962) was a Ukrainian and Soviet painter, avant-garde Cubist, Constructivist and Expressionist artist, theatrical designer, book illustrator, and architect. In 1925 he was awarded a gold me ...

* 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 Frank Helmut Auerbach (29 April 1931 – 11 November 2024) was a German-born British painter. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, he became a naturalised British subject in 1947. He is considered one of the leading names in the School of Lo ...

Leon Kossoff Leon Kossoff (10 December 1926 – 4 July 2019) was a British figurative painter known for portraits, life drawings and cityscapes of London, England. Early years and education Kossoff was born in Islington, London, and spent most of his early ...

Lucian Freud Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. His early career as a painter was inf ...

Patrick Heron Patrick Heron (30 January 1920 – 20 March 1999) was a British abstract and figurative artist, critic, writer, and polemicist, who lived in Zennor, Cornwall. Heron was recognised as one of the leading painters of his generation. Influenced ...

John Hoyland John Hoyland RA (12 October 1934 – 31 July 2011) was a London-based British artist. He was one of the country's leading abstract painters. Early life John Hoyland was born on 12 October 1934, in Sheffield, Yorkshire, to a working-class fami ...

Howard Hodgkin Sir Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin (6 August 1932 – 9 March 2017) was a British painter and printmaker. His work is most often associated with abstraction. Early life Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin was born on 6 August 1932 in Hammersmith, Londo ...

, John Walker * United States:

Ivan Albright Ivan Le Lorraine Albright (February 20, 1897 – November 18, 1983) was an American painter, sculptor and print-maker most renowned for his self-portraits, character studies, and still lifes. Due to his technique and dark subject matter, he is of ...

David Aronson David Aronson (October 28, 1923 – July 2, 2015) was a painter and Professor of Art at Boston University. Biography Aronson was born in Šiluva, Lithuania in 1923 to an Orthodox Jewish family. His father was a rabbi. He taught at Boston Unive ...

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 Leonard Baskin (August 15, 1922 – June 3, 2000) was an American sculptor, draughtsman and graphic artist, as well as founder of the Gehenna Press (1942–2000). One of America's first fine arts presses, it went on to become "one of the most imp ...

George Biddle George Biddle (January 24, 1885 – November 6, 1973) was an American painter, muralist and lithographer, best known for his social realism and combat art. A childhood friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he played a major role in establis ...

Hyman Bloom Hyman Bloom (March 29, 1913 – August 26, 2009) was a Latvian-born American painter. His work was influenced by his Jewish heritage and Eastern religions as well as by artists including Altdorfer, Grünewald, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Blake, Br ...

Peter Blume Peter Blume (27 October 1906 – 30 November 1992) was an American painter and sculptor. His work contained elements of folk art, Precisionism, Parisian Purism, Cubism, and Surrealism. Biography Blume, born in Smarhon, Russian Empire to a Je ...

Charles Burchfield Charles Ephraim Burchfield (April 9, 1893 – January 10, 1967) was an American painter and visionary artist, known for his passionate watercolors of nature scenes and townscapes. The largest collection of Burchfield's paintings, archives and j ...

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 Lyonel Charles Adrian Feininger (; July 17, 1871January 13, 1956) was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist. He was born and grew up in New York City. In 1887 h ...

, Wilhelmina Weber Furlong,

Elaine de Kooning Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning ( , ; ; March 12, 1918 – February 1, 1989) was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an editorial ...

, Willem de Kooning, Beauford Delaney, Arthur G. Dove, Norris Embry, Philip Evergood, Kahlil Gibran (sculptor), 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, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dorothea Tanning, Steffen Thomas, Wilhelmina Weber Furlong, Wilhelmina Weber, Max Weber (artist), Max Weber, 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

and

. Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider, named after a painting) was based in Munich and Die Brücke (The Bridge) was originally based in Dresden (some members moved to Berlin). 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. They were also aware of the work being done by the Fauvism, 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 ''School of Paris, École de Paris'' (

) by André Warnod were also known for their expressionist art.'''' This was especially prevalent amongst the foreign born Jewish painters of the

such as Chaïm Soutine, Chaim Soutine,

, Yitzhak Frenkel, 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 Katherine Sophie Dreier and Marcel Duchamp were likely among the first to attempt to introduce “modern art” to New York with the founding of the Société Anonyme in 1920. Their pioneering efforts were continued in 1929 by William Henry Fox, director of the Brooklyn Museum, who also advocated for the promotion of modern, and in particular, Expressionist art. Nevertheless, the reception of Expressionist art from Germany was initially marked by considerable skepticism. It was not until the Munich exhibition “Entartete Kunst” in 1937 that a drastic shift occurred in the United States: Expressionist works began to be increasingly acquired and exhibited by American museums—above all, to present them as an expression of a resistant culture in opposition to an authoritarian regime hostile to freedom. In late 1939, at the beginning of World War II, New York City received many European artists. After the war, Expressionism influenced many young American artists. Norris Embry (1921–1981) studied with

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 Expressionism, Boston Expressionists included: Karl Zerbe,

, Jack Levine,

. 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,

, Robert Goodnough, Grace Hartigan, Lester Johnson (artist), Lester Johnson, Alex Katz, George McNeil (artist), Jan Müller (artist), Jan Muller, Fairfield Porter, Gregorio Prestopino, Larry Rivers and Bob Thompson (painter), Bob Thompson. * Lyrical Abstraction, 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 (painter), 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, Jackson Pollock, 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),

, and many others. * Lyrical Abstraction in the United States and Canada beginning during the late 1960s and the 1970s. Characterized by the work of Dan Christensen, Peter Young (artist), Peter Young, Ronnie Landfield, Ronald Davis, Larry Poons, Walter Darby Bannard, Charles Arnoldi, Pat Lipsky and many others. * Neo-expressionism was an international revival style that began in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Representative paintings

File:Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Nollendorfplatz.jpg,

, ''Nollendorfplatz'', 1912 File:August Macke 005.jpg,

, ''Lady in a Green Jacket,'' 1913 File:Fighting Forms.jpg,

, ''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,

- 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 used the Expressionist style, as for example

. Other expressionist artists known mainly as painters, such as

, 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 film), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' (1920), Paul Wegener's ''The Golem: How He Came into the World'' (1920), Fritz Lang's ''Metropolis (1927 film), Metropolis'' (1927) and F. W. Murnau's ''Nosferatu, Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror'' (1922) and ''The Last Laugh (1924 film), 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 cinematography or the style of several of the films of Ingmar Bergman. 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'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, Arno Holz, Karl Kraus (writer), 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

'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 created an Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen, 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 (''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 Epic poetry, episodic dramatic structure and are known as ''Stationendramen'' (station plays), modeled on the presentation of the suffering and death of Jesus in the Stations of the Cross. Strindberg had pioneered this form with his autobiographical trilogy ''

''. 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 Symbolism (arts), 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 (1898–1956) Playwrights influenced by Expressionism: * Seán O'Casey (1880–1964) * Eugene O'Neill (1885–1953) * Elmer Rice (1892–1967) * Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) * Arthur Miller (1915–2005) * Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)

Poetry

Among the poets associated with German Expressionism were: * Jakob van Hoddis * Georg Trakl * Walter Rheiner *

* Georg Heym * Else Lasker-Schüler * Ernst Stadler * August Stramm * Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926): ''The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge'' (1910) * Geo Milev Other poets influenced by expressionism: * T. S. Eliot * Rudolf Broby-Johansen * Tom Kristensen (poet), Tom Kristensen * Pär Lagerkvist * Edith Södergran

Prose

In prose, the early stories and novels of Alfred Döblin were influenced by Expressionism, and Franz Kafka is sometimes labelled an Expressionist. Some further writers and works that have been called Expressionist include: * Franz Kafka (1883–1924): "The Metamorphosis" (1915), ''The Trial'' (1925), ''The Castle (novel), 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 * James Joyce (1882–1941): "The Nighttown" section of ''Ulysses (novel), Ulysses'' (1922) * Patrick White (1912–1990) * D. H. Lawrence * Sheila Watson (writer), Sheila Watson: ''The Double Hook, Double Hook'' * Elias Canetti: ''Auto-da-Fé (novel), Auto-da-Fé'' * Thomas Pynchon * William Faulkner * James Hanley (novelist), 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, Anton Webern and Alban Berg, the members of the Second Viennese School, are important Expressionism (music), Expressionists (Schoenberg was also an expressionist painter). Other composers that have been associated with expressionism are Ernst Krenek, Krenek (the Second Symphony), Paul Hindemith (''The Young Maiden''), Igor Stravinsky (''Japanese Songs''), Alexander Scriabin (late piano sonatas) (Adorno 2009, 275). Another significant expressionist was Béla Bartók 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 (1813–1883), Gustav Mahler (1860–1911), and Richard Strauss (1864–1949). Theodor Adorno 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 Werkbund Exhibition (1914), and Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany completed in 1921. The interior of Hans Poelzig's Berlin theatre (the Grosse Schauspielhaus), designed for the director Max Reinhardt (theatre director), Max Reinhardt, is also cited sometimes. The influential architectural critic and historian Sigfried Giedion, in his book ''Space, Time and Architecture'' (1941), dismissed Expressionist architecture as a part of the development of Functionalism (architecture), functionalism. In Mexico, in 1953, German émigré

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.

References

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 Expressionism, German literary movements

Etymology and history

Notable Expressionists

Groups of painters

In Germany and Austria

The School of Paris

In the United States

Representative paintings

In other arts

Dance

Sculpture

Cinema

Literature

Journals

Drama

Poetry

Prose

Music

Architecture

See also

References

Further reading

External links