Source - Wiki

roups of painters[edit]

Franz Marc, Rehe im Walde (Deer in Woods), 1914

The style originated principally in Germany and Austria. There were a number of groups of expressionist painters, including Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke. Der Blaue Reiter
(The Blue Rider, named for a painting) was based in Munich and Die Brücke was originally based in Dresden (although some members later relocated to Berlin). Die Brücke
was active for a longer period than Der Blaue Reiter, which was only together for a year (1912). The Expressionists were influenced by various artists and sources
including Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh, and African art.[21]  They were also aware of the work being done by the Fauves in Paris, who influenced Expressionism's tendency
toward arbitrary colours and jarring compositions. In reaction and opposition to French Impressionism, which emphasized the rendering of the visual appearance of objects,
Expressionist artists sought to portray emotions and subjective interpretations. It was not important to reproduce an aesthetically pleasing impression of the artistic subject
matter, they felt, but rather to represent vivid emotional reactions by powerful colours and dynamic compositions. Kandinsky, the main artist of Der Blaue Reiter group, believed
that with simple colours and shapes the spectator could perceive the moods and feelings in the paintings, a theory that encouraged him towards increased abstraction. [5]

The ideas of German expressionism influenced the work of American artist Marsden Hartley, who met Kandinsky in Germany in 1913. [22] In late 1939, at the beginning of World
War II, New York City received a great number of major European artists. After the war, Expressionism influenced many young American artists. Norris Embry (1921–1981)
studied with Oskar Kokoschka in 1947 and during the next 43 years produced a large body of work in the Expressionist tradition. Norris Embry has been termed "the first
American German Expressionist". Other American artists of the late 20th and early 21st century have developed distinct styles that may be considered part of Expressionism.
Another prominent artist who came from the German Expressionist "school" was Bremen-born Wolfgang Degenhardt. After working as a commercial artist in Bremen, he
migrated to Australia in 1954 and became quite well known in the Hunter Valley region.

After World War II, figurative expressionism influenced worldwide a large number of artists and styles. In the U.S., American Expressionism [23] and American Figurative
Expressionism, particularly Boston Expressionism,[24]  were an integral part of American modernism around the Second World War. Thomas B. Hess wrote that "the ‘New
figurative painting’ which some have been expecting as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism was implicit in it at the start, and is one of its most lineal continuities." [25]

 Major figurative Boston Expressionists included: Karl Zerbe, Hyman Bloom, Jack Levine, David Aronson. The Boston Expressionists persisted after World War II despite
their marginalization by the development of abstract expressionism centered in New York City, and are currently in the third generation.

 New York Figurative Expressionism [26][27]  of the 1950s represented New York figurative artists such as Robert Beauchamp, Elaine de Kooning, Robert Goodnough, Grace
Hartigan, Lester Johnson, Alex Katz, George McNeil (artist), Jan Muller, Fairfield Porter, Gregorio Prestopino, Larry Rivers and Bob Thompson.

 Lyrical Abstraction, Tachisme[28]  of the 1940s and 1950s in Europe represented by artists such as Georges Mathieu, Hans Hartung, Nicolas de Staël and others.

 Bay Area Figurative Movement [29][30]  represented by early figurative expressionists from the San Francisco area Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, and David Park. The
movement from 1950 to 1965 was joined by Theophilus Brown, Paul Wonner, Hassel Smith, Nathan Oliveira, Jay DeFeo, Joan Brown, Manuel Neri, Frank Lobdell,
and Roland Peterson.

 Abstract expressionism of the 1950s represented American artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Hans Burkhardt, Mary Callery, Nicolas Carone, Willem de
Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, and others[31][32] that participated with figurative expressionism.

 Sōsaku-hanga (創作版画 "creative prints") was an expressionist woodblock print movement in early 20th century Japan. The movement was characterized by the work
of Kanae Yamamoto (artist), Kōshirō Onchi, and many others.

 In the United States and Canada, Lyrical Abstraction beginning during the late 1960s and the 1970s. Characterized by the work of Dan Christensen, Peter
Young, Ronnie Landfield, Ronald Davis, Larry Poons, Walter Darby Bannard, Charles Arnoldi, Pat Lipsky and many others.[33][34][35]

 Neo-expressionism  was an international revival style that began in the late 1970s

Representative paintings[edit]
 

August Macke, Lady in a Green Jacket, 1913

Franz Marc, Fighting Forms, 1914

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Nollendorfplatz, 1912

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Self-Portrait as a Soldier, 1915

In other arts[edit]
The Expressionist movement included other types of culture, including dance, sculpture, cinema and theatre.
Mary Wigman, pioneer of Expressionist dance (left) at her West Berlin studio in 1959.

Dance[edit]
Main article: Expressionist dance

Exponents of expressionist dance included Mary Wigman, Rudolf von Laban, and Pina Bausch.[36]

Sculpture[edit]
Some sculptors used the Expressionist style, as for example Ernst Barlach. Other expressionist artists known mainly as painters, such as Erich Heckel, also worked with
sculpture.[5]

Cinema[edit]
Main article: German Expressionism (cinema)

There was an Expressionist style in German cinema, important examples of which are Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Golem: How He Came into the
World (1920), Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) and F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror (1922) and The Last Laugh (1924). The term "expressionist" is also
sometimes used to refer to stylistic devices thought to resemble those of German Expressionism, such as film noir cinematography or the style of several of the films of Ingmar
Bergman. More generally, the term expressionism can be used to describe cinematic styles of great artifice, such as the technicolor melodramas of Douglas Sirk or the sound
and visual design of David Lynch's films.[37]

Literature[edit]
Journals [edit]
Two leading Expressionist journals published in Berlin were Der Sturm, published by Herwarth Walden starting in 1910,[38] and Die Aktion, which first appeared in 1911 and was
edited by Franz Pfemfert. Der Sturm published poetry and prose from contributors such as Peter Altenberg, Max Brod, Richard Dehmel, Alfred Döblin, Anatole France, Knut
Hamsun, Arno Holz, Karl Kraus, Selma Lagerlöf, Adolf Loos, Heinrich Mann, Paul Scheerbart, and René Schickele, and writings, drawings, and prints by such artists
as Kokoschka, Kandinsky, and members of Der blaue Reiter.[39]

Drama [edit]
Main article: Expressionism (theatre)

The artist and playwright Oskar Kokoschka's 1909 playlet, Murderer, The Hope of Women is often termed 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. [40] The German composer Paul Hindemith created an operatic version of this play, which premiered in 1921. [41]

Expressionism was a dominant influence on 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. Important precursors were the Swedish playwright August
Strindberg and German actor and dramatist Frank Wedekind. During the 1920s, Expressionism enjoyed a brief period of influence in American theatre, including the early
modernist 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).[42]