Expressionism

I. Introduction

Expressionism, in the visual, literary, and performing arts, a movement or tendency

that strives to express subjective feelings and emotions rather than to depict reality or
nature objectively. The movement developed during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries as a reaction against the academic standards that had prevailed in Europe
since the Renaissance (1300-1600), particularly in French and German art academies. In
expressionism the artist tries to present an emotional experience in its most compelling
form. The artist is not concerned with reality as it appears but with its inner nature and
with the emotions aroused by the subject. To achieve these ends, the subject is
frequently caricatured, exaggerated, distorted, or otherwise altered in order to stress the
emotional experience in its most intense and concentrated form.

II. Painting and Sculpture

Although the term expressionism was not applied to painting until 1911, the qualities
attributed to expressionism are found in the art of almost every country and period.
Some Chinese and Japanese art emphasizes the essential qualities of the subject rather
than its physical appearance. Painters and sculptors of medieval Europe exaggerated
their work for the Romanesque and early Gothic cathedrals to intensify the spiritual
expressiveness of the subjects. Intense religious emotions expressed through distortion
are found also in the 16th-century works of the Spanish painter El Greco and the German
painter Matthias Grnewald. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Dutch
painter Vincent van Gogh, the French artist Paul Gauguin, and the Norwegian
painter Edvard Munch used violent colors and exaggerated lines to obtain intense
emotional expression.

The most important expressionist group in the 20th century was the German school. The
movement was originated by the painters Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, and Karl
Schmidt-Rottluff, who in 1905 organized a group in Dresden called Die Brcke (German
for "The Bridge"). They were joined in 1906 by Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein and in 1910
by Otto Mller. In 1912 this group exhibited paintings along with a Munich group that
called itself Der Blaue Reiter (German for "The Blue Rider"). The latter included the
German painters Franz Marc, August Macke,Gabriele Mnter, and Heinrich Campendonk;
the Swiss artist Paul Klee, and the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky. This phase of
expressionism in Germany was marked by the conscious exposition of emotions and a
heightened sense of the possibilities for expressive content. Die Brcke was dissolved by
1913, and World War I (1914-1918) halted most group activity. The fauves (see Fauvism)
in France, as well as the French painterGeorges Braque and the Spanish artist Pablo
Picasso, at a certain period of their development, were influenced by expressionism
(see Modern Art).

A new phase of German expressionism called Die Neue Sachlichkeit (German for "The
New Objectivity") grew out of the disillusionment following World War I. Founded by Otto
Dix and George Grosz, it was characterized by both a concern for social truths and an
attitude of satiric bitterness and cynicism. Expressionism meanwhile had become an
international movement, and the influence of the Germans is seen in the works of such
artists as the Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka, the French artist Georges Rouault, the
Lithuanian-born French painter Cham Soutine, the Bulgarian-born French painter Jules
Pascin, and the American painter Max Weber (see Painting).
Abstract expressionism appeared in the United States following the end of World War II in
1945. Abstract expressionist painters, such as Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Franz
Kline, and Jackson Pollock, attempted to transmit basic emotions through vivid colors,
bold forms, and spontaneous methods of dripping and flinging paintall without
recognizable subjects.

Expressionist sculpture has its roots in the work of the 19th-century French
sculptor Auguste Rodin, who expressed the inner states of his subjects within
representational forms. He strongly influenced the work of his assistant Antoine
Bourdelle, the Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic, the British sculptor Jacob Epstein, and
the German Ernst Barlach. All of their work, expressed in the human figure, involves
various forms of distortion, such as exaggeration, elongation, and massiveness.

III. Literature, Drama, and Film

The objectives of expressionism in literature, notably in the novel and the drama, are
similar to those in art. The characters and scenes are presented in a stylized, distorted
manner with the intent of producing emotional shock. The German painter Alfred Kubin,
a member of Der Blaue Reiter, wrote one of the earliest expressionist novels, Die Andere
Seite (The Other Side). He exerted a profound influence on the Czech novelist Franz
Kafka and other writers. The early expressionist playwrights, August Strindberg of
Sweden and Frank Wedekind of Germany, exerted an international influence on the next
generation of playwrights. These included the Germans Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller, the
Czech Karel Capek, and the Americans Eugene O'Neill and Elmer Rice.

Expressionist drama gave rise to a new approach to staging, scene design, and directing.
The object was to create a totally unified stage picture that would increase the emotional
impact of the production on the audience. Among prominent directors were the
Germans Max Reinhardt and Erwin Piscator and the Russian Vsevolod Meyerhold. Set
designers such as Edward Henry Gordon Craig of Britain and Robert Edmond Jones of the
United States used techniques similar to those of expressionist painters to provide visual
stimulation consonant with the dramas. Expressionist painting and drama also influenced
the cinema, as can be seen in the German films The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), with
its nightmarish perspectives and masklike makeup, and The Last Laugh (1924), notable
for the brilliant use of lighting and camera angles to convey the bitter story.

IV. Music

Expressionism in music, which crested between the two world wars, gave voice to the
anxieties, inner terrors, and cynicism of human life in the 20th century through
emotionally intense, musically complex, and carefully structured works. Conventional
techniques were distorted, and "pretty" harmonies were avoided in favor of dissonant,
complex ones used with great power. The music is often atonal or distorts traditional
tonality. Polyphony (interweaving of melodic lines) is often dense, and melody in the
traditional sense is often unrecognizable.

The roots of expressionism can be seen in the works of late romantic composers such
as Richard Wagner of Germany, and in the compositions of postromantics such as the
Austrian composer Gustav Mahler. Examples include two early operas by the German
composer Richard Strauss,Elektra (1909) and Salome (1905); certain works of the
Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, the dramatic scenes Erwartung (Anxiety, 1909)
and Die Glckliche Hand (The Lucky Hand, 1913), and the song cycle Pierrot
Lunaire (1912); and the operas of the Austrian composer Alban Berg, Wozzeck (1925)
and Lulu (1935; first full performance, 1979). Other composers with expressionist
elements include Paul Hindemith of Germany, Bla Bartk of Hungary, and Sergey
Prokofiev of Russia.