Expressionism

Expressionism. A term employed in the history and criticism of the arts to denote the use of distortion and exaggeration for emotional effect. The term is used in several different ways and can be applied to various art forms. In the pictorial arts, it can be used in its broadest sense to describe art of any period or place that raises acute subjective feeling above objective observation, reflecting the state of mind of the artist rather than images that conform to what we see in the external world. The paintings of Grünewald and El Greco, which convey intense religious emotion through distorted forms, are outstanding examples of expressionism in this sense (when used in this way the word is usually spelled with a small ‘e’). More commonly, the term is applied to a trend in modern European art in which strong, non-naturalistic colours and distorted or abbreviated forms were used to project inner feelings. More specifically, the term is used for one aspect of that trend—a movement that was the dominant force in German art from about 1905 until about 1930. (In the German-speaking countries Expressionism also had a powerful effect on other arts in this period, notably drama, poetry, and the cinema, which often show a common concern with the eruption of irrational forces from beneath the surface of the modern world. Some music, too, is described as Expressionist because of its emotional turbulence and lack of conventional logic, and there are also a few remarkable Expressionist buildings, although the most startling architectural designs remained on paper.)

In the second (broad European) sense described above, Expressionism traces its beginnings to the 1880s, but it did not become a distinct trend until about 1905, and as a description of a movement the term itself is thought to have been first used in print in 1911—in an article in Der Sturm (it was used more loosely long before this, in English and in German). The most important forerunner of Expressionism was van Gogh, who consciously exaggerated natural appearances ‘to express…man's terrible passions’. He was virtually unknown at the time of his death, but his reputation grew rapidly after that and his work made a major impact at a number of exhibitions in the early years of the 20th century. Van Gogh's friend Gauguin was also important for the development of Expressionism. He simplified and flattened forms, and used colour in a way that gave up all semblance of realism. As a counterpart to his stylistic innovations, he sought freshness of subject matter and found it first in the peasant communities of Brittany and later in the islands of the South Pacific. In turning away from European urban civilization, Gauguin discovered folk art and primitive art, both of which later became of absorbing interest to the Expressionists.

A third fundamental influence on Expressionism (especially in Germany, where he spent much of his career) was the Norwegian Edvard Munch, who knew the work of van Gogh and Gauguin well. From the mid-1880s he began to use violent colour and linear distortions to express the most elemental emotions of fear, love, and hatred. In his search to give pictorial form to the innermost thoughts that haunted him he came to appreciate the abrasive expressive potential of the woodcut—its revival as an independent art form (in which Gauguin also played a prominent role) was a distinctive feature of Expressionism; many of the leading German artists of the movement did outstanding work in the medium. Another artist whose formative influence on Expressionism was spread partly through the medium of prints (in this case etchings) was the Belgian James Ensor, who depicted the baseness of human nature by the use of grotesque and horrifying carnival masks.

The first Expressionist groups appeared almost simultaneously in 1905 in France (the Fauves) and Germany (Die Brücke). Matisse, the leader of the Fauves, summed up their aims when he wrote in 1908: ‘What I am after above all is expression…The chief aim of colour should be to serve expression as well as possible…The expressive aspect of colours imposes itself on me in a purely instinctive way. To paint an autumn landscape I will not try to remember what colours suit this season; I will be inspired only by the sensation that the season arouses in me.’ Even at their most violent, however, the Fauves always retained harmony of design and a certain decorativeness of colour, but in Germany restraint was thrown to the winds. Forms and colours were tortured to assert a sense of revolt against the established order. Kirchner, the dominant figure of Die Brücke, wrote in 1913: ‘We accept all the colours that, directly or indirectly, reproduce the pure creative impulse.’

The high point of German Expressionism came with the Blaue Reiter group, formed in Munich in 1911 with Kandinsky and Marc as leaders. These two and other members tried to express spiritual feelings in art and their work was generally more mystical in outlook than that of the Brücke painters. The Blaue Reiter was dispersed by the First World War (during which Marc and another key member, August Macke, were killed), but after the war Expressionism became widespread in Germany. Even artists such as Otto Dix and George Grosz, who sought a new and hard realism (see Neue Sachlichkeit), kept a good deal of Expressionist distortion and exaggeration in their work. However, Expressionism was suppressed by the Nazis when they came to power in 1933, along with all other art they considered degenerate. It revived after the Second World War, and Germany has been one of the main homes of its descendant Neo-Expressionism.

In its broadest sense, the influence of Expressionism can be seen in the work of artists of many different persuasions—Chagall and Soutine for example—and in movements such as Abstract Expressionism.