Expressionism was an early 20th century art movement characterized by subjective expression over objective reality. Two major German groups were Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. Die Brücke, formed in Dresden in 1905, sought to reject academic styles through emotional use of color and distortion. Key members included Kirchner, Heckel, and Schmidt-Rottluff. Der Blaue Reiter, led by Kandinsky and Franz Marc from 1911-1914, was more focused on abstraction and the spiritual expression of color. Both groups made significant contributions to the development of modern abstract art before being disrupted by World War I.

1. Expressionism

2.  Generally, a movement in the arts in which the artist does
not depict objective reality, but rather a subjective
expression of inner experience.
Vincent Van Gogh
The Starry Night, 1889
Jackson Pollock
Autumn Rhythm 30, 1950

3.  It is a tendency of an artist to
distort reality for emotional effect.
Additionally, the term often implies
emotional angst.
 The number of cheerful expressionist
expressionist works is relatively small.
Edvard Munch
The Scream, 1893

4.  Specifically, an international movement in art and
architecture, which flourished between c. 1905 and c. 1920,
especially in Germany.

5. Expressionism also extended to:
 Literature
 Film
 Dance
 Architecture
 Music
Arnold Schoenberg
Expressionistic music composer
Franz Kafka,
The Metamorphosis

6. Sculpture
Ernst Barlach
Der Fries der Lauschenden die Tanzerin
1931

7. Architecture
Eric Mendelsohn
Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany
Organic quality

8. Antonin Matejcek (Czech art historian, 1910) 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 pass
through his 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."

9. Influences:
 Vincent van Gogh
 Edvard Munch
 African art
 The Fauves in Paris
…he "did have a child of course,
Expressionism, and many, many
heirs”…
--Simon Schma
Color and its free application
Vincent van Gogh, Self-portrait,
oil on cardboard, 1887

10. Andre Derain
Maurice Vlaminck, 1906

11.  Expressionists in Germany worked extensively with African
compositional devices between the 2 world wars.
 For them, abstraction was suitable to their project of representing
the anxiety, dislocation, and utopian fantasies of interwar German
society.
World War I
9M casualties
5th deadliest conflict
UK, France, Russia vs.
Germany, Austria-Hungary

12. Ethno-linguistic map of Austria-Hungary, 1910
Gavrilo Princip, Bosnian
student, who was arrested
Immediately after he
Assasinated Archduke
Franz Ferdinand of Austria

13.  Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (Die Brücke, Berlin, Dresden) : combined
African aesthetics with the emotional intensity of dissonant color
tones and figural distortion, to depict the anxieties of modern life.
Ernest Ludwig-Kirchner
Self-Portrait as a Soldier, 1915
African Reliquary Head,
Gabon, 19th century

14.  Key Features:
 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

15.  Expressionists: Emotion  Fauvism: Beauty
Macke
Matisse

16. Two groups:
Die Brucke (The Bridge)
Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)

18.  Die Brücke (The Bridge)
 Dresden, Germany
 1905

19.  Königliche Technische Hochschule of Dresden ( a technical
university)
 The institution provided a wide range of studies in addition
to architecture, such as freehand drawing, perspective
drawing and the historical study of art.

20. Founding members:
 Fritz Bleyl (1880–1966)
 Eric Heckel (1883–1970)
 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938)
 Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976)
Bleyl married in 1907, and, with a concern to support his family,
left the group

21. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
A Group of Artists
oil on canvas
1926-27

22. Later members:
 Emil Nolde (1867-1956)
 Max Pechstein (1881-1955)
 Otto Mueller (1874-1930)
Otto Mueller
1912

23.  The group composed a
manifesto (mostly Kirchner's
work), which was carved on wood
and asserted a new generation,
"who want freedom in our work
and in our lives, independence
from older, established forces.

24. Goals:
 to eschew the prevalent traditional academic style
 find a new mode of artistic expression, which would form a
bridge (hence the name) between the past and the present.

25.  "Die Brücke" was intended to "symbolize the link, or bridge,
they would form with art of the future

26.  September and October
1906: the first group
exhibition was held,
focused on the female
nude, in the showroom
of K.F.M. Seifert and Co.
in Dresden.

27. Character or visual style:
 elements of primitivist art.
 extreme emotion through high-keyed color that
was very often non-naturalistic.
 crude drawing techniques
 antipathy to complete abstraction

28.  The Die Brücke artists' emotionally agitated paintings of city
streets and sexually charged events transpiring in country
settings make their French counterparts, the Fauves, seem
tame by comparison.

29. Max Pechstein (1881-1955)
The Yellow and Black
Swimsuit, 1909
Oil on Canvas - 68 x 78 cm

30. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-
1938)
Nude Reclining in front of a
Mirror, 1909-1910
Oil on Canvas - 83.3 x 95.5
cm

31. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
(1884-1976)
Break in the Dam, 1910
Oil on Canvas - 75 x 84 cm

32. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
(1880-1938)
The Artist Marcella, 1910
Oil on Canvas - 101 x 76
cm

33. Otto Dix
Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden
Mixed media on wood
1926

34. Max Pechstein
Under the Trees
oil on canvas
1911

35.  Between 1907 and 1911, Brücke members stayed during the
summer at the Moritzburg lakes and on the island of
Fehmarn.
Erich Heckel
Two Girls

36. Emil Nolde
Farn in the Marsch

37.  1911: Kirchner moved to Berlin, where he founded a private
art school, MIUM-Institut (in collaboration with Max
Pechstein)
 The aim: promulgating "Moderner Unterricht im Malen"
(modern teaching of painting). This was not a success and
closed the following year.]

38. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
(1880-1938)
Berlin Street Scene

39.  In 1913, Kirchner wrote Chronik der Brücke (Brücke
chronicle), which led to the ending of the group.
 1913 Dissolution of Die Brucke

41.  Der Blaue Reiter, (“The Blue Rider”) was an organization of
artists based in Germany that contributed greatly to the
development of abstract art. Neither a movement nor a
school with a definite program, Der Blaue Reiter was a
loosely knit organization of artists that organized group
shows between 1911 and 1914.

42.  The Blaue Reiter "leader", Kandinsky, 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.

43. Wassily Kandinsky
Blue Rider
1903
Horse and rider: Symbol beyond
realistic representation

44.  Der Blaue Reiter lacked an
artistic manifesto, but it
was centered around
Wassily Kandinsky and
Franz Marc.
Kandinsky, b. 1866, Moscow, Russia

45.  The name was taken
from Marc’s enthusiasm
for horses and
Kandinsky’s love for
riders and the two’s love
for the color blue.
Franz Marc, b. 1880, Munich, Germany

46.  On the Spiritual in Art (1911), Kandinsky
--Color blue is the color of spirituality.
--The darker the blue, the more it awakens human
desire for the eternal.

47. Other members:
--August Macke
-- Alexej von Jawlensky
--Paul Klee
--Gabriel Munter
--Lyonel Feininger
--Albert Bloch
Paul Klee, b. 1879, Switzerland

48. Artistic Activities:
--1911, 1st Exhibition , Munich,
toured Europe
until 1914
--1912, 2nd Exhibition,
Munich
--1912, the Blue Rider
Almanac, 140 artworks, 14
articles, edited by
Kandinsky and Marc
Cover of the Blue Rider Almanac, 1912

49. Franz Marc
The Tower of Blue Horses
1913
(missing since 1945)

50. Franz Marc, The Large Blue Horses, 1911

51. Wassily Kandinsky
Reiter (Lyrishes)
oil on canvas
1911

52. Wassily Kandinsky
Landscape with Two Poplars
1912

53. Wassily Kandinsky
Improvisation 27, Garden of Love II
1912
Wassily Kandinsky
Composition VII
1913

54. Wassily Kandinsky
On White II
1923

55. Paul Klee, In den Häusern von St.
Germain, 1914, watercolour on paper
on cardboard,
Paul Klee, Senecio 2, oil on gauze,
1922

56. August Macke
Rokoko
oil on canvas
1912

57. Auguste Macke
Farewell
oil on canvas
1914

58. Lasted for only 3 years, 1911-1914.
 Due to World War I
 Early deaths (Marc and Macke)
 Return to Russia (Kandinsky, Werefkin,
Jawlensky)
 Differences in opinion within the group