expressionism (1)
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Avery Dews, Mike Carlson, Evan JohnsonTRANSCRIPT
Expressionism
(German)
Properties of Expressionism
• Focused on the symbolic, emotional and spiritual meaning of art
• Artist’s inner world• Expressionism is a state of mind, not a style• Subjects appeared non-natural
– Distorted figures– Irregular shapes
• Often contained social commentary • Used bright color, dark lines, and bold shapes, to
help convey message
Starry Night
The Starry Night Vincent Van Gogh (1889)
The Scream
Edvard Munch (1893)
• Vincent Van Gogh
• Edvard Munch
• James Ensor
Influences
•Symbolism
•German Romanticism
•Economic and Social Change in Germany
The Old Peasant Woman
Paula Modersohn-Becker
(1905)
Assunta
Georg Kolbe
(1921)
The Survivors
Käthe Kollwitz
(1923)
Die Brücke
(The Bridge)
•Founded 1905, Dresden, Germany
•Founders: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
•Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, and Otto Mueller joined later
•Depicted psychological pressure of city life
•Influenced by the poetry of Walt Whitman, Scandinavian and Russian literature
•Often had erotic and morbid overtones
•Very public with their ideas•They thought they were revolutionaries
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
• Studied architecture at the Dresden Technical College
• Innovative woodcutting techiques
Street Life in Dresden (1908)
Lithograph
Dancer with Raised Skirt (1909-1910)
Woodcut
Winter Landscape by Moonlight
Oil on Canvas (1919)
Emil Nolde
• Studied art at the School of Applied Arts in Karlsruhe
• Expressive colors and brushstrokes
Loading Dock, Hamburg
Etching (1910)
The Prophet
Woodcut (1912)
Sunflowers
Oil on Canvas (1932)
Max Pechstein
• Painted using decorative colors influenced by Van Gogh and the Fauves
• Later incorporated more primitive aspects
• Mainly was a printmaker
Under the Trees
Oil on Canvas (1911)
Dancer Reflected
in Mirror Woodcut (1913)
Der
Blaue
Reiter(The Blue Rider)
Wassily Kandinsky
• Co-founder of Der Blaue Reiter.
• Style stretched between abstraction and expressionism.
• Gave meanings to shapes and colors.
Study for Painting with White Form
Oil on Canvas (1913)
Franz Marc
• Other co-founder.• Mainly painted
animals – he saw them as pure.
• Created his own color theory based on red, blue, and yellow.
• Later moved toward abstractionism.
Yellow Cow
Oil on Canvas (1911)
Animals in a Landscape
Oil on Canvas (1914)
Fighting Forms
Oil on Canvas (1914)
Oskar Kokoshka
• Austrian expressionist.
• Mainly known for his portraits – distorted and allegorical.
• Focused on portraying the psyche, mentally sick people.
The Bride of the Wind
Oil on Canvas (1913-1914)
Demise of Expressionism
• Die Brücke– Kirchner and
Pechstein attempted to create a program to teach modern painting in art in 1911, failed in 1912.
– Kirchner wrote Brücke Chronicle in 1913, which ended the group.
• Der Blaue Reiter– Franz Marc and
August Macke were killed in combat during 1914.
– Group disbanded shortly after.
Demise of Expressionism
• Post-Expressionism rose to prominence in 1925.
• An announcement from the Kunstalle in Manneheim ended Expressionism in 1925.
• Germany’s poor post-war economy and condemnation by the Nazis in the 1930s accelerated the decline, many artists fled after being labeled “degenerate artists.”