Expressionism

Expressionism. A term used in the history and criticism of the arts to denote the use of distortion and exaggeration for emotional effect. The term is employed 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 time or place that raises 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, who conveyed intense religious emotion through distorted, unnaturalistic forms, are outstanding examples of expressionism in this sense (when used in this way the word is usually spelled with a small ‘e’). In a narrower sense, the word Expressionism is applied to a broad trend in modern European art in which strong, non-naturalistic colours and distorted or abbreviated forms were used to project inner feelings. This trend traces its origin to van Gogh, who used colour and line emotionally ‘to express …man's terrible passions’, and among the other great artists who exemplify it are Ensor and Munch. Expressionism in this sense represented a rebellion against the naturalism of 19th-century art, and its insistence on the supreme importance of the artist's personal feelings was one of the foundations of aesthetic attitudes in the 20th century. More specifically, the term Expressionism is applied to one aspect of the trend just described—a movement that was the dominant force in German art from about 1905 to 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.) The Brücke and Blaue Reiter groups represent the high point of German Expressionism in painting, and led, in the case of Kandinsky, for example, to abstraction. Expressionism was suppressed by the Nazis when they came to power in 1933, along with all other art they considered degenerate, but 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.