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 Gr?newald 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 besides using of this term by Herwald Walden in his Polymic Magazine "Der Sturm" in 1911. 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 Br?cke and Der Blauer Reiter. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche played a key role in originating modern expressionism by clarifying and serving as a conduit for previously neglected currents in ancient art. In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche presented his theory of the ancient dualism between two types of aesthetic experience, namely the Apollonian and the Dionysian; a dualism between a world of the mind, of order, of regularity and polishedness and a world of intoxication, chaos, ecstacy. The Apollonian represented the rationally conceived ideal, whereas the Dionysian represented artistic conception proper, originating from man's subconscious. The analogy with the world of the Greek gods typifies the relationship between these extremes: two godsons, incompatible and yet inseparable. According to Nietzsche, both elements are present in any work of art. The basic characteristics of expressionism are Dionysian: bold colors, distorted forms, painted in a careless manner, two-dimensional, without perspective, and based on feelings (the child) rather than rational thought (the adult). 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 also coined by Czech art historian Anton?n Mat?j?ek 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:

• Germany: Heinrich Campendonk, Emil Nolde, Franz Marc, Ernst Barlach, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Beckmann, August Macke, Elfriede Lohse-W?chtler, Ludwig Meidner, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Gabriele M?nter and Max Pechstein.
• Austria: Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka
• Russia: Wassily Kandinsky and Alexei Jawlensky
• Netherlands: Charles Eyck, Willem Hofhuizen, Jaap Min, Jan Sluyters, Jan Wiegers and Hendrik Werkman
• Belgium: Constant Permeke, Gust De Smet, Frits Van den Berghe, James Ensor, Floris Jespers and Albert Droesbeke.
• France: Gen Paul and Chaim Soutine
• Norway: Edvard Munch

There were a number of Expressionist groups in painting, including the Blaue Reiter and Die Br?cke. 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 Br?cke was based originally in Dresden (although some later moved to Berlin). Die Br?cke 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 ridiculous 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 crazy lines that were the expressive and altruistic 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. In the theatre, there was a concentrated Expressionist movement in early 20th century German theatre of which Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller were the most famous playwrights. Other notable expressionist dramatists included Reinhard Sorge, Walter Hasenclever, Hans Henny Jahnn, and Arnolt Bronnen. They looked back to Swedish playwright August Strindberg and German actor and dramatist Frank Wedekind as precursors of their dramaturgical experiments. Oskar Kokoschka's 1909 playlet, Murderer, The Hope of Women is often called the first expressionist drama. In it, an unnamed man and woman struggle for dominance. The Man brands the woman; she stabs and imprisons him. He frees himself and she falls dead at his touch. As the play ends, he slaughters all around him (in the words of the text) "like mosquitoes." The extreme simplification of characters to mythic types, choral effects, declamatory dialogue and heightened intensity all would become characteristic of later expressionist plays. Expressionist plays often dramatize the spiritual awakening and sufferings of their protagonists, and are referred to as Stationendramen (station plays), modeled on the episodic presentation of the suffering and death of Jesus in the Stations of the Cross. August Strindberg had pioneered this form with his autobiographical trilogy To Damascus. The plays often dramatize the struggle against bourgeois values and established authority, often personified in the figure of the Father. In Sorge's The Beggar, (Der Bettler), the young hero's mentally ill father raves about the prospect of mining the riches of Mars; he is finally poisoned by his son. In Bronnen's Parricide (Vatermord), the son stabs his tyranncial father to death, only to have to fend off the frenzied sexual overtures of his mother. In expressionist drama, the speech is heightened, whether expansive and rhapsodic, or clipped and telegraphic. Director Leopold Jessner became famous for his expressionistic productions, often unfolding on the stark, steeply raked flights of stairs that quickly became his trademark. In the 1920s, expressionism enjoyed a brief period of popularity in the American theatre, including plays by Eugene O'Neill (The Hairy Ape, The Emperor Jones and The Great God Brown), Sophie Treadwell (Machinal) and Elmer Rice (The Adding Machine). 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 Gl?ckliche Hand, by Schoenberg, and Wozzeck, an opera by Alban Berg (based on a play by Georg B?chner), are example of expressionist works. In 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.