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,

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 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,

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,

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 * 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 (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 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 Beauford Delaney (December 30, 1901 – March 26, 1979) was an American modernist painter. He is remembered for his work with the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as his later works in abstract expressionism following his move ...

, Arthur G. Dove, Norris Embry,

Philip Evergood Philip Howard Francis Dixon Evergood (born Howard Blashki; 1901–1973) was an American Social Realist painter, etcher, lithographer, sculptor, illustrator and writer. He was particularly active during the Depression and World War II era. Life ...

Kahlil Gibran Gibran Khalil Gibran (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and Visual arts, visual artist; he was also considered a philosopher, although he himself reject ...

William Gropper William Gropper (December 3, 1897January 3, 1977) was an American cartoonist, painter, lithographer, and muralist. A committed radical, Gropper is best known for the political work which he contributed to such left wing publications as '' Th ...

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980) was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. "Guston worked in a number of artistic modes, from Renaissance-inspired figuration to formally accomplis ...

Marsden Hartley Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin. Early life and education Hartley was bor ...

, Albert Kotin,

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a Japanese-American painter, photographer and printmaker. Early life Kuniyoshi was born on September 1, 1889, in Okayama, Japan. He immigrated to the United States in 1906 at 17, choosing not to attend military school in Japan. Kuniyoshi ...

Rico Lebrun Rico Federico Lebrun (December 10, 1900 – May 9, 1964) was an Italian-American painter and sculptor. Early life Lebrun was born in 1900 in Naples, Italy. Before he started his art career he began a two-year service in the Italian Army durin ...

Jack Levine Jack Levine (January 3, 1915November 8, 2010) was an American Social Realist painter and printmaker best known for his satires on modern life, political corruption, and biblical narratives. Levine is considered one of the key artists of the Bos ...

Alfred Henry Maurer Alfred Henry Maurer (April 21, 1868 – August 4, 1932) was an American modernist painter. He exhibited his work in avant-garde circles internationally and in New York City during the early twentieth century. Highly respected today, his wor ...

Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...

Alice Neel Alice Neel (January 28, 1900 – October 13, 1984) was an American visual artist. Recognized for her paintings of friends, family, lovers, poets, artists, and strangers, Neel is considered one of the greatest American portraitists of the 20th ...

Abraham Rattner Abraham Rattner (July 8, 1895 – February 14, 1978) was an American artist, best known for his richly colored paintings, often with religious subject matter. During World War I, he served in France with the U.S. Army as a camouflage artist. Ear ...

, Esther Rolick,

Ben Shahn Ben Shahn (September 12, 1898 – March 14, 1969) was an American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as ''The Shape of Content''. Born Benjamin Shahn in Ka ...

Harry Shoulberg Harry Shoulberg (1903 – 1995) was an American expressionist painter. He was known to be among the early group of WPA artists working in the screen print (serigraph) medium, as well as oil. Biography Harry Shoulberg was born October 25, ...

Joseph Stella Joseph Stella (born Giuseppe Michele Stella, June 13, 1877 – November 5, 1946) was an Italian-born American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America, especially his images of the Brooklyn Bridge. He is also ...

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 Dorothea Margaret Tanning (25 August 1910 – 31 January 2012) was an American painter, printmaker, sculptor, writer, and poet. Her early work was influenced by Surrealism. Biography Dorothea Tanning was born and raised in Galesburg, Illinois. ...

Steffen Thomas Steffen Wolfgang George Thomas (January 7, 1906 – January 27, 1990) was an artist and poet. He was born in Fürth, Germany, but lived most of his adult life in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. His most notable pieces are public monumen ...

, 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 Hale Aspacio Woodruff (August 26, 1900 – September 6, 1980) was an American artist known for his murals, paintings, and prints. Early life, family and education Woodruff was born in Cairo, Illinois, on August 26, 1900. He grew up in a black fa ...

Karl Zerbe Karl Zerbe (September 16, 1903 – November 24, 1972) was a German-born American painter and educator. Biography Zerbe was born on September 16, 1903, in Berlin, Germany. The family lived in Paris, France, from 1904 to 1914, where his fath ...

. * Uruguay:

Rafael Barradas Rafael Pérez Giménez Barradas (4 January 1890 in Montevideo – 12 February 1929 in Montevideo), was an Uruguayan modernist painter and graphic artist who worked in Spain. Biography His parents were immigrants from Spain. His older sister, C ...

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 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 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 André Warnod (1885–1960) was a French writer, goguettier, art critic, and illustrator, who witnessed the artistic scenes of Montmartre and Montparnasse during the 1910s-1930s. Biography André Warnod was born in Giromagny on April 24, 1 ...

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

such as Chaim Soutine,

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 Abraham Mintchine (4 April 1898 – 25 April 1931) was one of the major painters associated with the artists' environment known as School of Paris. A Jewish painter, born in Kyiv, he immigrated to Paris in 1925. His known artwork was produced ...

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

, 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

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 American Figurative Expressionism is a 20th-century visual art style or movement that first took hold in Boston, and later spread throughout the United States. Critics dating back to the origins of Expressionism have often found it hard to define ...

, particularly

Boston Expressionism Boston Expressionism is an art movement marked by emotional directness, dark humor, social and spiritual themes, and a tendency toward figuration strong enough that Boston Figurative Expressionism is sometimes used as an alternate term to distin ...

, 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:

. The Boston Expressionists persisted after World War II despite their marginalization by the development of

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

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 Beauchamp (1923 – 22 March 1995) was an American figurative painter and arts educator. Beauchamp's paintings and drawings are known for depicting dramatic creatures and figures with expressionistic colors. His work was described in the ...

, Robert Goodnough,

Grace Hartigan Grace Hartigan (March 28, 1922 – November 15, 2008) was an American abstract expressionist painter and a significant member of the vibrant New York School of the 1950s and 1960s. Her circle of friends, who frequently inspired one another in t ...

, Lester Johnson,

Alex Katz Alex Katz (born July 24, 1927) is an American figurative artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and printmaking, prints. Since 1951, Katz's work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions and nearly 500 group exhibitions through ...

George McNeil (artist) George McNeil (February 22, 1908 – January 11, 1995) was an American abstract expressionist painter. Biography George J. McNeil was born in Queens, New York, on February 22, 1908, the youngest child of an Irish Catholic working-class family. ...

, Jan Muller,

Fairfield Porter Fairfield Porter (June 10, 1907 – September 18, 1975) was an American painter and art critic. He was the fourth of five children of James Porter, an architect, and Ruth Furness Porter, a poet from a literary family. He was the brother of photo ...

, Gregorio Prestopino,

Larry Rivers Larry Rivers (born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg; August 17, 1923 – August 14, 2002) was an American painter, musician, filmmaker, and occasional actor. Considered by many scholars to be the "Godfather" and "Grandfather" of Pop art, he was on ...

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 __NOTOC__ Tachisme (alternative spelling: Tachism, derived from the French word ''tache'', stain; ) is a French style of Abstract art, abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The term is said to have been first used with regards to the ...

of the 1940s and 1950s in Europe represented by artists such as

Georges Mathieu Georges Mathieu (27 January 1921 – 10 June 2012) was a French abstract painter, art theorist, and member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He is considered one of the fathers of European lyrical abstraction, a trend of informalism. B ...

Hans Hartung Hans Hartung (21 September 1904 – 7 December 1989) was a German-French painter, known for his gestural abstract style. He was also a decorated World War II veteran of the Legion d'honneur. Life Hartung was born in Leipzig, Germany, into an ...

Nicolas de Staël Nicolas de Staël (; January 5, 1914 – March 16, 1955) was a French painter of Russian origin known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. He also worked with collage, illustration and textiles. Early li ...

and others. *

Bay Area Figurative Movement The Bay Area Figurative Movement (also known as the Bay Area Figurative School, Bay Area Figurative Art, Bay Area Figuration, and similar variations) was a mid-20th-century art movement made up of a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area wh ...

represented by early figurative expressionists from the San Francisco area

Elmer Bischoff Elmer Nelson Bischoff (July 9, 1916 – March 2, 1991), was an American visual artist, from the San Francisco Bay Area. Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park (painter), David Park, was part of the post-World War II generation of ...

Richard Diebenkorn Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he began ...

, and David Park. The movement from 1950 to 1965 was joined by

Theophilus Brown William Theophilus Brown (April 7, 1919 – February 8, 2012) was an American artist. He became prominent as a member of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Background and career A descendant of early-American intellectuals, Brown was born i ...

, Paul Wonner,

Hassel Smith Hassel Smith (24 April 1915 – 2 January 2007) was an American artist and teacher. He is considered to have been one of the USA's foremost West Coast artists, emerging in the decade after World War II as an innovative, potent, witty and often ...

Nathan Oliveira Nathan Oliveira (December 19, 1928 – November 13, 2010) was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor, born in Oakland, California to immigrant Portuguese parents. Since the late 1950s, Oliveira has been the subject of nearly one hundred s ...

Jay DeFeo Jay DeFeo (31 March 1929 – 11 November 1989) was an American visual artist who became celebrated in the 1950s as part of the spirited community of Beat artists, musicians, and poets in San Francisco. Best known for her monumental work ''The Rose ...

Joan Brown Joan Brown (born Joan Vivien Beatty; February 13, 1938 – October 26, 1990) was an American figurative painter who lived and worked in Northern California. She was a member of the "second generation" of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.Gl ...

Manuel Neri Manuel John Neri Jr. (April 12, 1930October 18, 2021) was an American sculptor who is recognized for his life-size figurative sculptures in plaster, bronze, and marble. In Neri's work with the figure, he conveys an emotional inner state that is re ...

Frank Lobdell Frank Lobdell (1921–2013) was an American painter, often associated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement and Bay Area Abstract Expressionism. Life and career Frank Lobdell was born on August 23, 1921, in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in ...

, and

Roland Peterson Roland Wilbert Peterson (31 October 1941 – 11 December 2017) was an Aruban police officer, writer and poet. Peterson was tasked with creating the new Aruba Police Force in 1986, when Aruba became an autonomous Countries of the Kingdom of the N ...

. *

Abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

of the 1950s represented American artists such as

Louise Bourgeois Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...

Hans Burkhardt Hans Gustav Burkhardt (December 20, 1904 – April 22, 1994) was a Swiss-American abstract expressionist artist. Life and work Burkhardt was born in the industrial quarter of Basel, Switzerland. When he was three, his father abandoned the fami ...

, Mary Callery,

Nicolas Carone Nicolas Carone (June 4, 1917 – July 15, 2010) belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists. Their artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized internationally, including in London and Paris. New ...

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 ...

, and others that participated with figurative expressionism. *

Sōsaku-hanga was an art movement of woodblock printing which was conceived in early 20th-century Japan. It stressed the artist as the sole creator motivated by a desire for self-expression, and advocated principles of art that is "self-drawn" (自画 ''jiga' ...

(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) Kanae Yamamoto (, Yamamoto Kanae , 24 October 1882 – 8 October 1946) was a Japanese artist, known primarily for his prints and ' Western-style paintings. He is credited with originating the ' ("creative prints") movement, which aimed a ...

, and many others. *

in the United States and Canada beginning during the late 1960s and the 1970s. Characterized by the work of

Dan Christensen Dan Christensen (October 6, 1942 – January 20, 2007) was an American abstract painter He is best known for paintings that relate to Lyrical Abstraction, Color field painting, and Abstract expressionism. Christensen was born in Cozad, Ne ...

Peter Young Peter or Pete Young may refer to: Sports * Peter Dalton Young (1927–2002), English rugby union player * Peter Young (cricketer, born 1961), Australian cricketer * Pete Young (born 1968), American baseball player * Peter Young (rugby league) (fl. ...

Ronnie Landfield Ronnie Landfield (born January 9, 1947) is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction (related to Postminimalism, Color Field painting, and ...

Ronald Davis Ronald "Ron" Davis (born 1937) is an American painter whose work is associated with geometric abstraction, abstract illusionism, lyrical abstraction, hard-edge painting, shaped canvas painting, color field painting, and 3D computer graphic ...

Larry Poons Lawrence M. "Larry" Poons (born October 1, 1937) is an American abstract painter. Poons was born in Tokyo; he studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, with the intent of becoming a professional musician. Afte ...

, Walter Darby Bannard,

Charles Arnoldi Charles Arthur Arnoldi (born April 10, 1946) is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker. Life and work Arnoldi began using actual tree branches as a compositional element in his works, combined with painting to create stick constructions. ...

, 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,

, ''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,

- 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 Mary Wigman (born Karoline Sophie Marie Wiegmann; 13 November 1886 – 18 September 1973) was a German dancer and choreographer who pioneered expressionist dance, dance therapy, and movement training without pointe shoes. She is considered on ...

Rudolf von Laban Rudolf (von) Laban, also known as Rudolph von Laban (; 15 December 1879 – 1 July 1958), was an Austro-Hungarian dance artist, choreographer, and movement theorist. He is considered a "founding father of expressionist dance" and a pioneer of ...

, and

Pina Bausch Philippine "Pina" Bausch (27 July 1940 – 30 June 2009) was a German dancer and choreographer who was a significant contributor to a neo-expressionist dance tradition now known as . Bausch's approach was noted for a stylised blend of dance move ...

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

. 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 Robert Wiene (; 27 April 1873 – 17 July 1938) was a German film director, screenwriter and Film producer, producer, active during the Silent film, silent era. He is widely-known for directing the landmark 1920 film ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ...

's ''

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' () is a 1920 German silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. The quintessential work of early German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypno ...

'' (1920),

Paul Wegener Paul Wegener (11 December 1874 – 13 September 1948) was a German actor, writer, and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema. Acting career At the age of 20, Wegener decided to end his law studies and conce ...

'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 Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe; December 28, 1888March 11, 1931) was a German film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is regarded as one of cinema's most influential filmmakers for his work in the silent era. An e ...

'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 Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck; 26 April 1897 – 14 January 1987) was a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s. However, he also directed comedies, westerns, and war f ...

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 ''Der Sturm'' () was a German List of avant-garde magazines, avant-garde art and literary magazine founded by Herwarth Walden, covering Expressionism, Cubism, Dada and Surrealism, among other artistic movements. It was published between 1910 a ...

'', published by

Herwarth Walden Herwarth Walden (actual name Georg Lewin; 16 September 1879 – 31 October 1941) was a German expressionist artist and art expert in many disciplines. He is broadly acknowledged as one of the most important discoverers and promoters of German av ...

starting in 1910, and ''

Die Aktion ''Die Aktion'' ("The Action") was a German literary and political magazine, edited by Franz Pfemfert and published between 1911 and 1932 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf; it promoted literary Expressionism and stood for left-wing politics. To begin with, ' ...

'', which first appeared in 1911 and was edited by

Franz Pfemfert Franz Pfemfert (20 November 1879, Lötzen, East Prussia (now Giżycko, Poland) – 26 May 1954, Mexico City) was a German journalist, editor of '' Die Aktion'', literary critic, politician and portrait photographer. Pfemfert occasionally wrote ...

. ''Der Sturm'' published poetry and prose from contributors such as

Peter Altenberg Peter Altenberg (9 March 1859 – 8 January 1919) was a writer and poet from Vienna, Austria. He played a key role in the genesis of early modernism in the city. Biography He was born Richard Engländer on 9 March 1859 in Vienna into a Jews, J ...

Max Brod Max Brod (; 27 May 1884 – 20 December 1968) was a Bohemian-born Israeli author, composer, and journalist. He is notable for promoting the work of writer Franz Kafka and composer Leoš Janáček. Although he was a prolific writer in his ow ...

Richard Dehmel Richard Fedor Leopold Dehmel (18 November 1863 – 8 February 1920) was a German poet and writer. Life A forester's son, Richard Dehmel was born in Hermsdorf near Wendisch Buchholz (now a part of Münchehofe) in the Brandenburg Province, ...

Alfred Döblin Bruno Alfred Döblin (; 10 August 1878 – 26 June 1957) was a German novelist, essayist, and doctor, best known for his novel '' Berlin Alexanderplatz'' (1929). A prolific writer whose œuvre spans more than half a century and a wide variety of ...

Anatole France (; born ; 16 April 1844 – 12 October 1924) was a French poet, journalist, and novelist with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters.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 Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf (, , ; 20 November 1858 – 16 March 1940) was a Swedish writer. She published her first novel, ''Gösta Berling's Saga'', at the age of 33. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which she was ...

Adolf Loos Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos (; 10 December 1870 – 23 August 1933) was an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect, influential European theorist, and a polemicist of modern architecture. He was inspired by modernism and a widely-known c ...

Heinrich Mann Luiz Heinrich Mann (; March 27, 1871 – March 11, 1950), best known as simply Heinrich Mann, was a German writer known for his sociopolitical novels. From 1930 until 1933, he was president of the fine poetry division of the Prussian Academy ...

Paul Scheerbart Paul Karl Wilhelm Scheerbart (8 January 1863, Danzig – 15 October 1915, Berlin) was a German author of speculative fiction literature and drawings. He was also published under the pseudonym ''Kuno Küfer'' and is best known for the book ' ...

, and

René Schickele René Schickele (4 August 1883 – 31 January 1940) was a German-French writer, essayist and translator. Schickele's most famous work is the novel trilogy ''Das Erbe am Rhein'' (1925–31): ''Maria Capponi'' (1925), ''Blick auf die Vogesen'' (1 ...

, and writings, drawings, and prints by such artists as

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 ...

, 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 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 Friedrich Carl Georg Kaiser, called Georg Kaiser, (25 November 1878 – 4 June 1945) was a German dramatist. Biography Kaiser was born in Magdeburg. He was highly prolific and wrote in a number of different styles. An Expressionist dramatist, ...

and

Ernst Toller Ernst Toller (1 December 1893 – 22 May 1939) was a German author, playwright, left-wing politician and revolutionary, known for his Expressionist plays. He served in 1919 for six days as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, ...

were the most famous playwrights. Other notable Expressionist dramatists included

Reinhard Sorge Reinhard Johannes Sorge (29 January 1892 – 20 July 1916) was a German dramatist and poet. He is best known for writing the Expressionist and radically iconoclastic stage play '' The Beggar'' (''Der Bettler''), which won the Kleist Prize in 1 ...

Walter Hasenclever Walter Georg Alfred Hasenclever (8 July 1890 – 22 June 1940) was a German Jewish Expressionist poet and playwright. His works were banned when the Nazis came to power and he went into exile in France. There he was imprisoned as a "foreign e ...

Hans Henny Jahnn Hans Henny Jahnn (born Hans Henny August Jahn'';'' 17 December 1894 – 29 November 1959) was a German playwright, novelist, and organ-builder. Personal life Hans Henny Jahn was born in 1894 in Stellingen, one of Hamburg's suburbs, and was the s ...

, and

Arnolt Bronnen Arnolt Bronnen (19 August 1895 – 12 October 1959) was an Austrian playwright and director. Life and career Bronnen was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of the Austrian-Jewish writer Ferdinand Bronner and his Christian wife Martha Bronner. B ...

. 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 Hairy Ape'' is a 1922 expressionist play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. It is about a beastly, unthinking laborer known as Yank, the protagonist of the play, as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the ri ...

'', ''

The Emperor Jones ''The Emperor Jones'' is a 1920 tragic play by American dramatist Eugene O'Neill that tells the tale of Brutus Jones, a resourceful, self-assured African American and a former Pullman porter, who kills another black man in a dice game, is jailed ...

'' and ''The Great God Brown''),

Sophie Treadwell Sophie Anita Treadwell (October 3, 1885 – February 20, 1970) was an American playwright and journalist of the first half of the 20th century. She is best known for her play '' Machinal'' which is often included in drama anthologies as an examp ...

(''

Machinal ''Machinal'' is a 1928 play by American playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell, inspired by the real-life case of convicted and executed murderer Ruth Snyder. Its Broadway premiere, directed by Arthur Hopkins, is considered one of the high ...

'') and

Elmer Rice Elmer Rice (born Elmer Leopold Reizenstein, September 28, 1892 – May 8, 1967) was an American playwright. He is best known for his plays '' The Adding Machine'' (1923) and his Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of New York tenement life, '' Street Sce ...

(''

The Adding Machine ''The Adding Machine'' is a 1923 play by Elmer Rice; it has been called "... a landmark of American Expressionism, reflecting the growing interest in this highly subjective and nonrealistic form of modern drama." Plot The author of this play ta ...

''). Expressionist plays often dramatise the spiritual awakening and sufferings of their protagonists. Some utilise an episodic

dramatic structure Story structure or narrative structure is the recognizable or comprehensible way in which a narrative's different elements are unified, including in a particularly chosen order and sometimes specifically referring to the ordering of the plot: ...

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 The Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as the Via Dolorosa, Way of Sorrows or the , are a series of fourteen images depicting Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ on the day of Crucifixion of Jesus, his crucifixion and acc ...

. 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 Parricide is the deliberate killing of one's own parent, spouse, child, or other close relative. However, the term is sometimes used more generally to refer to the intentional killing of a near relative. It is an umbrella term that can be used to ...

'' (''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 Leopold Jessner (3 March 1878 – 13 December 1945) was a noted producer and director of German Expressionist theater and cinema. His first film, '' Hintertreppe'' (1921), is considered a major turning point which paved the way for the late ...

became famous for his expressionistic productions, often set on stark, steeply raked flights of stairs (having borrowed the idea from the

Symbolist Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: *Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea Arts *Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea ** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...

director and designer,

Edward Gordon Craig Edward Henry Gordon CraigSome sources give "Henry Edward Gordon Craig". (born Edward Godwin; 16 January 1872 – 29 July 1966), sometimes known as Gordon Craig, was an English modernist theatre practitioner; he worked as an actor, director an ...

). 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: *

(1878) *

(1893–1939) *

(1894–1959) *

(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 Seán O'Casey ( ; born John Casey; 30 March 1880 – 18 September 1964) was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes. Early life O'Casey was ...

(1880–1964) *

(1885–1953) *

(1892–1967) *

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three ...

(1911–1983) *

Arthur Miller Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are '' All My Sons'' (1947), '' Death of a Salesman'' (1 ...

(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 Jakob van Hoddis (16 May 1887 – May/June 1942) was the pen name of the Jewish German expressionist poet Hans Davidsohn, of which "Van Hoddis" is an anagram. His most famous poem ''Weltende'' (''End of the world''), published on 11 January 1 ...

Georg Trakl Georg Trakl (; 3 February 1887 – 3 November 1914) was an Austrian poet and the brother of the pianist Grete Trakl. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists. He is perhaps best known for his poem " Grodek", which h ...

* Walter Rheiner *

Georg Heym Georg Theodor Franz Artur Heym (30 October 1887 – 16 January 1912) was a German writer. He is particularly known for his poetry, representative of early Expressionism. Biography Heym was born in Hirschberg, Lower Silesia, in 1887 to H ...

Else Lasker-Schüler Else Lasker-Schüler (née Elisabeth Schüler) (; 11 February 1869 – 22 January 1945) was a German poet and playwright famous for her bohemian lifestyle in Berlin and her poetry. She was one of the few women affiliated with the Expressionist ...

Ernst Stadler Ernst Maria Richard Stadler (11 August 1883 — 30 October 1914) was a German Expressionist poet, writer and translator. As a poet, he was part of the early German expressionist movement. Born in Colmar, Alsace-Lorraine, and educated in Strasb ...

August Stramm August Stramm (29 July 1874 – 1 September 1915) was a German war poet and playwright who is considered the first of the expressionists. Stramm's radically experimental verse and his major influence on all subsequent German poetry has caused h ...

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 Geo Milev (born Georgi Milev Kasabov; – 15 May 1925) was a Bulgarian poet, translator, and journalist. He is perhaps best known for his epic poem ''Septemvri'', written during the Bulgarian September Uprising. Life Geo Milev was born Georgi ...

Other poets influenced by expressionism: *

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

Rudolf Broby-Johansen Rudolf Kristian Albert Broby-Johansen (25 November 25, 1900 – 9 August 1987) was a Danish art historian, communist activist and writer. Born in Aalborg, North Jutland to a working-class family, Broby-Johansen grew up in Lunde, Otterup Mun ...

Tom Kristensen Tom Kristensen (born 7 July 1967) is a Danish former racing driver. He holds the record for the most wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with nine, six of which were consecutive (from 2000 to 2005). In 1997, he won the race with the Joest Racing te ...

Pär Lagerkvist Pär Fabian Lagerkvist (23 May 1891 – 11 July 1974) was a Swedish author who received the 1951 Nobel Prize in Literature. Lagerkvist wrote poetry, plays, novels, short stories, and essays of considerable expressive power and influence from hi ...

Edith Södergran Edith Irene Södergran (4 April 1892 – 24 June 1923) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish poet. One of the first modernists within Swedish-language literature, her influences came from French Symbolism, German expressionism, and Russian f ...

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: *

(1883–1924): "

The Metamorphosis ''The Metamorphosis'' (), also translated as ''The Transformation'', is a novella by Franz Kafka published in 1915. One of Kafka's best-known works, ''The Metamorphosis'' tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes to find himself inex ...

" (1915), ''

The Trial ''The Trial'' () is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. One of his best-known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, wi ...

'' (1925), '' The Castle'' (1926) *

(1878–1957): ''Berlin Alexanderplatz'' (1929) *

Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''Blast (British magazine), Blast'', the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His ...

(1882–1957) *

Djuna Barnes Djuna Barnes ( ; June 12, 1892 – June 18, 1982) was an American artist, illustrator, journalist, and writer who is perhaps best known for her novel '' Nightwood'' (1936), a cult classic of lesbian fiction and an important work of modernist lite ...

(1892–1982): ''

Nightwood ''Nightwood'' is a 1936 novel by American author Djuna Barnes that was first published by publishing house Faber and Faber. It is one of the early prominent novels to portray explicit homosexuality between women, and as such can be considered ...

'' (1936) *

Malcolm Lowry Clarence Malcolm Lowry (; 28 July 1909 – 26 June 1957) was an English poet and novelist who is best known for his 1947 novel ''Under the Volcano'', which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list.

(1909–1957): ''

Under the Volcano ''Under the Volcano'' is a novel by the English writer Malcolm Lowry (1909–1957) published in 1947. It tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British Consulate general, consul in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca, Quauhnahuac on the D ...

'' (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 Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus, a legendary Greek hero recognized for his intelligence and cunning. He is famous for his long, adventurous journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, as narrated in Homer's Odyssey. Ulysses may also refer ...

'' (1922) *

Patrick White Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was an Australian novelist and playwright who explored themes of religious experience, personal identity and the conflict between visionary individuals and a materialistic, co ...

(1912–1990) *

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, literary critic, travel writer, essayist, and painter. His modernist works reflect on modernity, social alienation ...

* 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 An ''auto-da-fé'' ( ; from Portuguese language, Portuguese or Spanish language, Spanish (, meaning 'act of faith') was a ritualized or public penance carried out between the 15th and 19th centuries in condemnation of heresy, heretics, Aposta ...

'' *

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, Literary genre, genres and Theme (narrative), th ...

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 Raul Germano Brandão (12 March 1867 in Foz do Douro, Porto – 5 December 1930 in Lisbon) was a Portuguese writer, journalist and military officer, notable for the realism of his literary descriptions and by the lyricism of his language. Brand ...

(1867–1930): ''Húmus'' (1917) *

Leonid Andreyev Leonid Nikolaievich Andreyev (, – 12 September 1919) was a Russian playwright, novelist and short-story writer, who is considered to be a father of Expressionism in Russian literature. He is regarded as one of the most talented and prolific ...

(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 Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...

, the members of the

Second Viennese School The Second Viennese School () was the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, particularly Alban Berg and Anton Webern, and close associates in early 20th-century Vienna. Their music was initially characterized by late ...

, are important

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

s (Schoenberg was also an expressionist painter). Other composers that have been associated with expressionism are Krenek (the Second Symphony),

(''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 Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, scientific transliteration: ''Aleksandr Nikolaevič Skrjabin''; also transliterated variously as Skriabin, Skryabin, and (in French) Scriabine. The composer himselused the French spelling "Scriabine" which was a ...

(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 ''Duke Bluebeard's Castle'' (, literally ''The Blue-Bearded Duke's Castle'') is a one-act Symbolism (movement), Symbolist opera by composer Béla Bartók to a Hungarian libretto by his friend and poet Béla Balázs. Based on the French folk legen ...

'' (1911), ''

The Wooden Prince ''The Wooden Prince'' (), Op. 13, Sz. 60, is a one-act pantomime ballet composed by Béla Bartók in 1914–1916 (orchestrated 1916–1917) to a scenario by Béla Balázs. It was first performed at the Budapest Opera on 12 May 1917 under the co ...

'' (1917), and ''

The Miraculous Mandarin ''The Miraculous Mandarin'' (, ; ) Op. 19, Sz. 73 (BB 82), is a one act pantomime ballet composed by Béla Bartók between 1918 and 1924, and based on the 1916 story by Melchior Lengyel. Premiered on 27 November 1926 conducted by Eugen Szenka ...

'' (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 ' (''Expectation''), Op. 17, is a one-act monodrama in four scenes by Arnold Schoenberg to a libretto by . Composed in 1909, it was not premiered until 6 June 1924 in Prague conducted by Alexander Zemlinsky with Marie Gutheil-Schoder as the sop ...

'' and ''Die Glückliche Hand'', by Schoenberg, and ''

Wozzeck ''Wozzeck'' () is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. Composed between 1914 and 1922, it premiered in 1925. It is based on the drama '' Woyzeck'', which German playwright Georg Büchner left incomplete at his death. Berg attende ...

'', an opera by Alban Berg (based on the play ''

Woyzeck ''Woyzeck'' () is a stage play written by Georg Büchner. Büchner wrote the play between July and October 1836, yet left it incomplete at his death in February 1837. The play first appeared in 1877 in a heavily edited version by Karl Emil F ...

'' by

Georg Büchner Karl Georg Büchner (17 October 1813 – 19 February 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose, considered part of the Young Germany movement. He was also a revolutionary and the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchn ...

), 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 Bruno Julius Florian Taut (4 May 1880 – 24 December 1938) was a renowned German architect, urban planner and author. He was active during the Weimar period and is known for his theoretical works as well as his building designs. Early l ...

Glass Pavilion The Glass Pavilion, designed by Bruno Taut and built in 1914, was a prismatic glass dome structure at the Cologne Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition. The structure was a brightly colored landmark of the exhibition, constructed using concrete and glass. ...

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) The first Werkbund Exhibition of 1914 was held at Rheinpark in Cologne, Germany. History The Deutscher Werkbund, was a group of architects, designers, artists, and industrialists whose aim was to promote the collaboration of art, industry, a ...

, and

Erich Mendelsohn Erich Mendelsohn (); 21 March 1887 – 15 September 1953) was a German-British architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinem ...

'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 Hans Poelzig (30 April 1869 – 14 June 1936) was a German architect, painter and set designer. Life Poelzig was born in Berlin in 1869 to Countess Clara Henrietta Maria Poelzig while she was married to George Acland Ames, an Englishman. Uncert ...

's Berlin theatre (the Grosse Schauspielhaus), designed for the director

Max Reinhardt Max Reinhardt (; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born Theatre director, theatre and film director, theater manager, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his radically innovative and avant-gard ...

, 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

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 Luis Ramiro Barragán Morfín (March 9, 1902 – November 22, 1988) was a Mexican architect and engineer. His work has influenced contemporary architects visually and conceptually. Barragán's buildings are frequently visited by international ...

adopted the term that influenced his work. The two of them collaborated in the project

Torres de Satélite The Torres de Satélite ("Satellite Towers") are a group of sculptures located in the Ciudad Satélite district of Naucalpan, State of Mexico. One of the country's first urban sculptures of great dimensions, had its planning started in 1957 wit ...

(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