expressionism

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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 the 16th-century artists 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 crystallize into a distinct programme 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 the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853–90), 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. His first retrospective after the turn of the century was at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris in 1901; this and his exhibition at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905 were important in the development of Fauvism (for an example of the overwhelming effect the Bernheim-Jeune show had on one of the future Fauves, see VLAMINCK). In 1905 a huge exhibition of van Gogh's work was held at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and his influence reached England with Roger Fry's first Post-Impressionist exhibition of 1910. He was the dominant artist at the great Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne in 1912 and was well represented at the Armory Show in New York in 1913.

Van Gogh's friend Gauguin was also important for the development of Expressionism. His own work cannot be described as Expressionist, but he was the first to accept explicitly the principles of Symbolism, which in turn influenced Expressionism. He simplified and flattened forms, and sometimes used colour in a way that abandoned all semblance of realism. As a counterpart to his stylistic innovations, Gauguin sought for simplicity 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, he discovered folk art and primitive art, both of which later became absorbing interests for 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 give vent to 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 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.

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.

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.

expressionism term used to describe works of art and literature in which the representation of reality is distorted to communicate an inner vision. The expressionist transforms nature rather than imitates it.

In Art

In painting and the graphic arts, certain movements such as the Brücke (1905), Blaue Reiter (1911), and new objectivity (1920s) are described as expressionist. In a broader sense the term also applies to certain artists who worked independent of recognized schools or movements, e.g., Rouault, Soutine, and Vlaminck in France and Kokoschka and Schiele in Austria—all of whom made aggressively executed, personal, and often visionary paintings. Gauguin, Ensor, Van Gogh, and Munch were the spiritual fathers of the 20th-century expressionist movements, and certain earlier artists, notably El Greco, Grünewald, and Goya exhibit striking parallels to modern expressionistic sensibility. See articles on individuals, e.g., Ensor .

Bibliography: See C. Zigrosser, The Expressionists (1957); F. Whitford, Expressionism (1970); J. Willett, Expressionism (1970); W. Pehnt, Expressionist Architecture (1973).

In Literature

In literature, expressionism is often considered a revolt against realism and naturalism, seeking to achieve a psychological or spiritual reality rather than record external events in logical sequence. In the novel, the term is closely allied to the writing of Franz Kafka and James Joyce (see stream of consciousness ). In the drama, Strindberg is considered the forefather of the expressionists, though the term is specifically applied to a group of early 20th-century German dramatists, including Kaiser, Toller, and Wedekind. Their work was often characterized by a bizarre distortion of reality. Playwrights not closely associated with the expressionists occasionally wrote expressionist drama, e.g., Karel Čapek's R.U.R. (1921) and Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones (1921). The movement, though short-lived, gave impetus to a free form of writing and of production in modern theater.

Bibliography: See E. Krispyn, Style and Society in German Literary Expressionism (1964); P. Vogt et al., Expressionism: A German Intuition, 1905–1920 (1980); P. Rabbe, ed., The Era of German Expresionism (tr. 1986); J. Weinstein, The End of Expressionism (1989).

Expressionism. Artistic movement in Northern Europe, especially in Germany and The Netherlands, from c.1905 to c.1930, it was concerned in architecture not to emphasize function, but to create free and powerful sculptural forms, often crystalline, sometimes sharply angular, and occasionally stalactitic. In The Netherlands the most important protagonists were members of the Amsterdam School, and the characteristic works housing by Michel de Klerk and the Scheepvaarthuis (Navigation House—1913–17) in Amsterdam. In Denmark the greatest work of Expressionism (with a pronounced Gothic flavour) was the Grundtvig Church, Copenhagen (1913–26), by Jensen-Klint. In Germany, however, there were several outstanding examples: the water-tower and exhibition-hall at Posen (now Poznań) of 1911, with a polygonal steel structure resembling crystalline hexagonal forms, by Poelzig; the glass pavilion, Werkbund Exhibition, Cologne (1914), by Bruno Taut; the Grosses Schauspielhaus (Great Playhouse), Berlin (1918–19— destroyed), with its interior resembling a cave of stalactites, by Poelzig; the Einstein Tower, Potsdam (1919–21), by Mendelsohn; the Chile-Haus, Hamburg (1922–3), by Fritz Höger; the administrative-building of the Hoechst Dyeworks (1920–5), by Behrens; the Liebknecht-Luxemburg Monument, Berlin (1926—destroyed), by Mies van der Rohe; the churches of Bartning; some churches by Dominikus Böhm certain works by Bellot; and the farm buildings, Gut Garkau, by Häring. The Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland (1924–8), by Rudolf Steiner, was one of the greatest works of the movement. Some of Gottfried Böhm's architectural language derived from Expressionism.

Bibliography

Chilvers, Osborne, & Farr (eds.) (1988);
Lampugnani (ed.) (1988);
Pehnt (1973);
U. Schneider (1999);
Sharp (1967);
Wit & and Casciato (1986)

Expressionism, movement that began in Germany in about 1910, and is best typified by the plays of Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller. The term was first used in 1901 by Auguste Hervé to describe some of his paintings conceived in reaction against Impressionism in art. It was later used of art, music, and literature as well as plays that displayed reality as seen by the artist looking out from within, instead of, as with Impressionism, reality as it affects the artist inwardly. The Expressionist theatre was a theatre of protest, mainly against the contemporary social order and the domination of the family. Most of its dramatists were poets who used the theatre to further their ideas, and it was partly their use of poetic language that led to the collapse of the movement. It was too personal, as was the concentration on the central figure, the author-hero whose reactions are ‘expressed’ in the play. Among the forerunners of Expressionism were Strindberg and Wedekind; the first drama of the Expressionist movement is usually considered to be Der Bettler, by Reinhard Sorge. One of the few dramatists outside Germany to be influenced by Expressionist drama was Eugene O'Neill, particularly in The Emperor Jones (1920) and The Hairy Ape (1922).

Expressionism, a term coined in the early 20th cent. to describe a movement in art, then in literature, the theatre, and the cinema, characterized by boldness, distortion, and forceful representation of the emotions. One of its earliest manifestations was in the group of German painters, Die Brücke (‘the Bridge’), formed in Dresden in 1905 and influenced by Van Gogh and Munch. In the theatre the term has been associated with the works of Toller, Strindberg, Wedekind, and early Brecht, and embraces a wide variety of moods—satirical, grotesque, visionary, exclamatory, violent, but always anti-naturalistic. The epitome of Expressionism in German cinema was Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919). Expressionism flourished principally in Germany, and took little root in Britain, though W. Lewis, and Vorticism have some affinities with it, and traces of its influence can be found in the verse dramas of Auden and Isherwood, and later in the cinema (e.g. G. Greene's The Third Man, directed by Carol Reed, 1949).

Expressionism, aesthetic movement in which the artist expresses his inner experience through the free representation of objective facts. Since it emphasizes the creator's mood and attitude, the movement is a development of Impressionism, from which it differs by being more concerned with individual intellectual conceptions, and less with the structure of exterior facts. Both movements belong to the later phase of romanticism. Expressionism originated in European painting, and was brought to the U.S. by painters. Although exemplified in literature by T.S. Eliot and other poets, it has been more influential in the theater, in the work of such stage designers as R.E. Jones and in the dramatic technique of such plays as The Hairy Ape, The Emperor Jones, The Adding Machine, and Beggar on Horseback.

expressionism Style of art in which conventional methods of naturalism are replaced by exaggerated images to express intense, subjective emotion. The term is often used in relation to a radical German art movement between the 1880s and c.1905. The inspiration for this new focus came from many different sources, including the work of Van Gogh, Gauguin, Munch and those within symbolism, as well as from folk art. German expressionism reached its apogee in the work of the Blaue Reiter group. The term also applies to performance arts, such as the works of Strindberg and Wedekind.

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/expressionism

ex·pres·sion·ism / ikˈspreshəˌnizəm/ • n. a style of painting, music, or drama in which the artist or writer seeks to express emotional experience rather than impressions of the external world. DERIVATIVES: ex·pres·sion·ist n. & adj. ex·pres·sion·is·tic / ikˌspreshəˈnistik/ adj. ex·pres·sion·is·ti·cal·ly / ikˌspreshəˈnistik(ə)lē/ adv.

expressionism. Term borrowed from painting, generally assoc. with work of the early 20th-cent. Ger. artists of the Munich ‘Blaue Reiter’ group led by Kandinsky. Prin. characteristics were avoidance of representational forms and interest in psychological impulses. These were musically reflected in works of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg. But, like impressionism, the term is vague.

expressionism a style of painting, music, or drama in which the artist or writer seeks to express emotional experience rather than impressions of the external world. Expressionists characteristically reject traditional ideas of beauty or harmony and use distortion, exaggeration, and other non-naturalistic devices in order to emphasize and express the inner world of emotion.