UMK-Art & Culture: (German) Expressionism (1900-1950)

“The Miracle of Authenticity: The faith that if we're all authentic and express ourselves, society will benefit. A charming ideal, but it overlooks the obvious. There are a lot of authentic jerks and idiots in the world. Encouraging them to express themselves will never do anybody much good, much less society.” – Brad Holland

What was it about? What were the goals?
Expressionism was a form of social protest, hoping to revolutionize society through art. The goal of these artists was outlined in 1906 by Ernst Kirchner in his Expressionist Manifesto: “We call all young people together, and as young people, who carry the future in us, we want to wrest freedom for our actions and our lives from the older, comfortably established forces.”
Kirchner and his friends looked at the world in a new way, attempting to visualize the emotional experience of a subject, rather than its realistic outward appearance. They didn’t want to simply paint a face, a building, or people in a city street. They wanted to explore what these things meant to them.

The underlying philosophy of the movement:
According to the art historian Antonin Matějček, Expressionists rejected Impressionism. They took the same observations as an Impressionist, and then interpreted through the “filter of the soul” to remove unnecessary details and get a clearer, more honest representation of what they saw. Artists of this movement were deeply influenced by the psychologist Sigmund Freud, and by philosophers like Kafka and Nietzsche, and so they explored emotions such as angst, nervousness, isolation, depression and self-doubt, finding ways to depict these feelings visually. This was one of the first art movements to look for something other than beauty as a subject. The notion that this art was more “honest” than other movements may be pretentious, but it was certainly more personal, and at times more revealing.

But, wait a minute? Isn’t all art expressive? What makes Expressionism different?
Of course all art is expressive. Just look back at Art Nouveau, the Pre-Raphaelites, and even Impressionism and Realism, which these artists despised. All these movements portrayed the world in ways a camera couldn’t. What made Expressionism different was its experimental approach, choosing selectively what to observe and include, and exclude, without a care for realism or academic training.

A bit of historical context:
Expressionism took inspiration from certain post-impressionist artists like Van Gogh, Bonnard, and Vuillard. Although it was international, Expressionism began in Germany with two different groups of artists, Die Brücke (The Bridge) in Dresden, and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in Munich (named after one of Kandinsky’s paintings). These artists looked to explore how life was changing, often for the worse, in new, large, cosmopolitan cities. They considered injustices like poverty, materialism, and war, and wondered how modern, civilized society could tolerate them. Ironically, their critique was much the same as the Realist artists Manet, Millet, and Courbet, back in the 1850’s and 60’s. But, the Expressionists rejected the look of realism, considering it a tradition forced on them by society, so they chose to embrace a level of primitivism, childishness, vulgarity, and ugliness to free themselves of social constraints and better express how they really felt.
Die Brücke got its name from one of Nietzsche’s books, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, where he used a bridge as a metaphor for the barbaric past, and what should be a better future. Expressionists wanted to be that bridge, which makes their fate all the sadder. Both Franz Marc and August Macke died in combat in WWI. Expressionism fell out of favour in Germany with the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party in the 1930’s. Many of their artworks were burned. Hitler even organized an exhibition of “degenerate art” to make fun of it. The show included over 30 works by Kirchner, who committed suicide soon after. Other artists had to flee, and many died before WWII ended. By that point, however, Expressionism had spread out around the world where it continues to be a major artistic influence and inspiration.

Was it great?
I think so, at least some of it. Some people fail to appreciate it, but I enjoy a lot of these artists, their aesthetics, the feelings they invoke, the inventiveness, and the overall spirit of their experiments. I also recognize the difficulty in what they were doing, and see a level of expertise in these seemingly childish works that non-artists sometimes miss. At its best, with the works of Kathe Kollwitz, and Egon Schiele, it’s extremely powerful.
Another common question concerns whether these artists were capable of drawing realistically, or if they were just bad at it. Having reviewed some of their earlier works, I’ve found they actually could draw quite well. They learned realism first, and then went on to abstraction.

How is Expressionism any different from other modern movements, like Fauvism or Primitivism?
Art historians agree that it’s very hard to differentiate these early modern movements. It mostly has to do with geography. Originally, Fauvists were French, Futurists were Italian, and Expressionists were German. Both movements showed a disdain for modern city life, and a longing nostalgia for nature and forests. Both were abstract and childlike. There was also a lot of blending of ideas, as these artists travelled and influenced each other. I would say, the biggest single difference is that Expressionist works are generally more dismal, sombre, and frightening, especially the later works.

How was it represented in other arts – music, architecture, and literature?
The first Expressionists also wrote poetry, and as the movement spread, it filtered into literature, dance, music, and even film. Mary Wigman was a major innovator in dance. Franz Kafka was the main novelist of the movement. Famous films include The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by Robert Wiene, Metropolis by Fritz Lang, and Nosferatu by Murnau.
The artist Oskar Kokoschka also wrote the first Expressionist play, Murderer, The Hope of Women, in 1909. The composer Paul Hindemith then arranged it into an opera. Other playwrights included Georg Kaiser, Ernst Toller, Bertolt Brecht, and, in America, Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams. Expressionist theatre often concerned a hero who becomes disillusioned by society and rebels, having a spiritual awakening, and many plays mirrored Jesus’ stations of the cross.
Apart from Hindemith, the three main Expressionist composers were Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and Alban Berg, members of the “Second Viennese School”. They developed the “serial twelve-tone technique” in which all twelve tones are equally represented – no one note dominates. This results in music that’s virtually impossible to remember, as there is no key, no repetition, no melody, no motifs, etc. You’ll recognize it when you hear it, but you won’t be able to hum it after.
Expressionism even worked its way into architecture but it wasn’t fully accepted there. The two most famous works are the Einstein Tower in Potsdam by Erich Mendelsohn and Bruno Taut’s Glass Pavilion in Cologne.

The Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany, by Mendelsohn, 1921

Some leading figures:

Members of Der Blaue Reiter:
Marianne von Werefkin (1860-1938)
Alexej von Jawlensky (1864-1941)
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)
Paul Klee (1879-1940)
Franz Marc (1880-1916)
August Macke (1887-1914)

Members of Die Brücke:
Emil Nolde (1867-1956)
Otto Mueller (1874-1930)
Fritz Bleyl (1880-1966)
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)
Max Pechstein (1881-1955)
Erich Heckel (1883-1970)
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976)

Other leading figures:
Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863-1944)(Also considered a Symbolist)
Kathe Kollwitz (German, 1867-1945)
Paula Modersohn-Becker (German, 1876-1907)
Marsden Hartley (American, 1877-1943)
Arthur Dove (American, 1880-1946)
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)
Amedeo Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920)
Max Beckmann (German,1884-1950)
Marc Chagall (Russian-French, 1887-1985)
Egon Schiele (Austrian, 1890-1918)
Otto Dix (German, 1891-1969)
Joan Miro (Spanish, 1893-1983)
Henry Moore (English, 1898-1986)
Estelle Ishigo (American, 1899-1990)
Alice Neel (American, 1900-1984)
Francis Bacon (English, 1909-1992)
Lucian Freud (English, 1922-2011) (son of Sigmund Freud)

Some of the most famous artworks of the time: