1905-1940s

EXPRESSIONISM

 1905-1940s
 Center: Germany
 overlapped with other major 'isms' of the
modernist
period: with
Futurism, Vorticism, Cubism, Surrealism and
Dadaism
 a movement that developed in the early twentieth-
century mainly in Germany in reaction to the
dehumanizing effect of industrialization and the
growth of cities
 Expressionism
a style in which the intention is not to reproduce
a subject accurately, but instead to portray it in such a
way as to express the inner state of the artist

 Expressionist artists
-rejected the ideology of realism.
-sought to express meaning or emotional experience
rather than physical reality
 Goal of Expressionism:

“To evoke the subjective responses that the artist has to
objects or events.”

 Contrasted with Impressionism- sought to

capture the outward impression of an object or
scene.
 Expressionism did not attempt a realistic portrayal
of the world, but rather the extreme and distorting
emotions that the world causes in the sensitive
individual.
Portrait of
Pope Innocent X
by Diego Velasquez
 Study After
Velasquez’ s
Portrait of
Pope Innocent X
by Francis Bacon
(1953)
Artists

Edvard Munch
Dec. 12, 1863- January
23, 1944

“No longer shall I paint

interiors with men reading
and women knitting. I will
paint living people who
breathe and feel and suffer
and love.”

“For as long as I can

remember I have suffered
from a deep feeling of anxiety
which I have tried to express
in my art.”
 “Art is the opposite of
Nature. A work of art
can only come from
inside a person. Art is
the shape of the picture
fashioned through the
nerves, heart, brain and
eye of aman.”

self-portrait of
Edvard Munch
The Sick
Child
1896
The Scream
1893
Madonna
1894-1895
 Puberty
1894-1895
 Jealousy
1895

Anxiety
1894
 Melancholy
1894

Ashes
1894
Death in the SickChamber
Ernst Ludwig
Kirchner

"A painter paints the

appearance of things, not
their objective
correctness, in fact he
creates new appearances of
things.“

"My paintings are allegories

not portraits."
 Self-portrait with Pipe, 1905

Die Brücke (The Bridge)

Nude Dancers, 1909
Marzella 1909-1910
Deutsch:
Nollendorfplatz
1912
Street Berlin, 1913
Self Portrait as a Soldier
1915
 Wassily Kandinsky

“Of all the arts, abstract painting is

the most difficult. It demands that
you know how to draw well, that
you have a heightened sensitivity
for composition and for
colors, and that you be a true poet.
This last is essential.“

"Colour is the keyboard, the eyes

are the hammers, the soul is the
piano with many strings. The
artist is the hand which
plays, touching one key or
another, to cause vibrations in the
soul
Der Blaue Reiter
(The Blue Rider)
Der Blaue Reiter
(The Blue Rider)
1903
Composition VII, 1913
Composition X, 1939
Composition VII, 1923
 Influence in
Other Art forms

Music
 Arnold Schoenberg
• Leader of Second Viennese
School

• Known for Atonality and Twelve

Tone Technique of composition

• Students: Anton Webern and

Alban Berg

• Compositions:
Fünf Orchesterstücke, Op. 16
(1909), Erwartung, Op. 17
(1909), Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21
(1912)
Anton Webern Alban Berg