Expressionism

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About Expressionism
Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect. Expressionism is exhibited in many art forms, including painting, literature, film, architecture and music. Additionally, the term often implies emotional angst - the number of cheerful expressionist works is relatively small.

In this general sense, painters such as Matthias Grünewald and El Greco can be called expressionist, though in practice, the term is applied mainly to 20th century works.

Origin of the term
Although it is used as term to reference, there has never been a distinct movement that called itself expressionism. The term is usually linked to paintings and graphic work in Germany at the turn of the century which challenged the academic traditions, particularly through Die Brücke and Der Blauer Reiter

More generally it refers to art that is expressive of intense emotion. It is arguable that all artists are expressive but there is a long line of art production in which heavy emphasis is placed on communication through emotion. Such art often occurs during time of social upheaval, and through the tradition of graphic art there is a powerful and moving record of turmoil in Europe from the 15th century on: the Protestant Reformation, Peasant Wars, Spanish Occupation of Netherlands, the rape, pillage and disaster associated with countless periods of chaos and oppression are presented in the documents of the printmaker. Often the work is unimpressive aesthetically, but almost without exception has the capacity to move the viewer to strong emotions with the drama and often horror of the scenes depicted.

The term was coined by Czech art historian Antonin Matejcek in 1910 as the opposite of impressionism: "An Expressionist wishes, above all, to express himself [sic]....[An Expressionist rejects] immediate perception and builds on more complex psychic structures....Impressions and mental images that pass through mental peoples soul as through a filter which rids them of all substantial accretions to produce their clear essence [...and] are assimilated and condense into more general forms, into types, which he transcribes through simple short-hand formulae and symbols." (Gordon, 1987)

Visual artists
Some of the movement's leading visual artists in the early 20th century were:

Max Beckmann (although he did not like being categorized as such)
Conrad Felixmüller
Erich Heckel
Wassily Kandinsky
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Oskar Kokoschka
Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler
August Macke
Franz Marc
Otto Mueller
Edvard Munch
Emil Nolde
Gen Paul
Max Pechstein
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Chaim Soutine

There were a number of Expressionist groups in painting, including the Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke. Later in the 20th century, the movement influenced a large number of other artists, including the so-called abstract expressionists.

There was never a group of artists that called themselves Expressionists. The movement is primarily German and Austrian. The group Der Blaue Reiter was based in Munich and Die Brücke was based originally in Dresden (although some later moved to Berlin). Die Brücke was active for a longer period than Der blaue Reiter which was only truly together for a year (1912). The expressionists had many influences, among them Munch, Vincent van Gogh, and African art. They also came to know the work being done by the Fauves in Paris.

The Fauves and the Expressionists both used bright colours, but for different purposes. The Fauves hoped to achieve beauty, while the Expressionists hoped to achieve emotion through them. The importance of color was its expressive power, no longer was the subject the medium which led to drama or sentiment in the work of art, but it was the use of color and lines that were the expressive and powerful means.

The "head" of Der Blaue Reiter, Kandinsky, would take this a step further. He believed that with simple colors and shapes the spectator could perceive the moods and feelings in the paintings, therefore he made the important jump to Abstraction, changing 20th century art.

In other media
Expressionism is also used to describe other art forms.

Some sculptors also adopted this style, as for example Ernst Barlach.

There was also an expressionist movement in film, often referred to as German Expressionism. The most important examples are The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Golem.

In literature the novels of Franz Kafka are often described as expressionist, for example, and there was a concentrated Expressionist movement in early 20th century German theatre centred around Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller.

In music, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Alban Berg, the members of the Second Viennese School, wrote pieces described as expressionist (Schoenberg also made expressionist paintings). Other composers who followed them, such as Ernst Krenek, are often considered as a part of the expressionist movement in music. What distinguished these composers from their contemporaries such as Maurice Ravel, George Gershwin and Igor Stravinsky is that expressionist composers self-consciously used atonality to free their artform from the traditional tonality. They also sought to express the subconscious, the 'inner necessity' and suffering through their highly dissonant musical language. Erwartung and Die Glückliche Hand, by Schoenberg, and Wozzeck, an opera by Alban Berg (based on a play by Georg Büchner), are example of expressionist works.

Einsteinturm in PotsdamIn architecture, two specific buildings are identified as expressionist: Bruno Taut's Glass Pavilion at the Cologne Werkbund Exhibition (1914), and Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany completed in 1921. Hans Poelzig's Berlin theatre interior for Max Reinhardt is also sometimes cited.