German
Expressionism
Early 20th Century
• German artists were aware of the developments
taking place in France at the end of the 19th
Century and the beginning of the 20th.
• They were influenced by the work of the Post
Impressionists: Van Gogh, Cezanne, and
Matisse.
• There were two main groups or schools of
German Expressionism: Die Brucke, and Die
Blaue Reiter.
Die Brucke 1906 - 1912
• A group of young architects in Dresden,
Germany, formed an alliance and began
painting together.
• They called themselves Die Brucke, which
means The Bridge, for they felt that their
art would be a bridge to a brighter future,
and a way to communicate their utopian
ideals to society.
Some of the artists associated with Die
Brucke were:
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Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1880 – 1938
Edvard Munch 1863 – 1944
Paula Modersohn Becker 1876 – 1906
Kathe Kollwitz – 1867 - 1945
Die Brucke
• The artists of Die Brucke were critical of the intensely
materialistic nature of German bourgeois society. Much
like the idealistic youth of the 1960s, they felt a “return to
nature” would benefit society and uplift human beings.
• They frequently painted nudes in landscapes, to express
their rejection of bourgeois rigidity (the influence of
Gauguin is evident here).
• While the Impressionists had worked hard to record
exactly what they saw as natural light hit objects in a
landscape, the German Expressionists allowed their own
personalities to shape their work; to see “the hand of the
artist” in a work was something to be encouraged, rather
than avoided, they believed.
• The artists of Die Brucke were interested
in extreme psychological states. Munch is
perhaps the most obvious example of this
(“The Scream”)
• They were also interested in traditional
German folklore and in the tradition of
wood block printmaking, which was
developed centuries earlier by the German
artist Durer.
• The influence of medieval art is seen in
the anti illusionism and heavy use of
outlines in Expressionist art.
• The influence of Oceanic and African
masks and totems is also seen in the work
of the German Expressionists.
Edvard Munch
( Norwegian)
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Edvard Munch
The Scream
1893
Munch - The Scream
• Before the Expressionist period artists showed
people in anguish, just as they would appear to
a rational, objective viewer. With Munch and the
other Expressionists, this changed. They
showed the world as viewed through the eyes of
people in anguish. When seen that way, the
colors and shapes of familiar objects change.
Trees, hills, houses, and people are pulled out of
shape and take on new, unexpected colors.
Munch -The Scream
• [Munch] used curved shapes and colors that are
expressive rather than realistic. Everything is
distorted to make you feel a certain way…there
is no mistaking the fact that the person in this
painting is terrified. The body bends and twists
as a scream builds and erupts from deep within.
It is a scream so piercing that the figure clasps
its hands tightly over its ears. The entire scene
vibrates with the intensity of this scream – it
echoes across the landscape like ripples across
still water (Mittler. Art in Focus. 538).
Edvard Munch – Vampire -1893
Edvard Munch – Sick Child - 1886
• The childhood of Edvard Munch was
marked by tragedy. His mother died when
he was five, and one of his sisters died
when he was fourteen … The fear,
suffering and death of loved ones that he
experienced in his own life became the
subject matter for his art (Mittler. Art in
Focus. 537).
• How much his own suffering contributed to his
work can be seen in a picture entitled The Sick
Child. He returned to this subject several times
in paintings and prints and was no doubt
inspired by the death of his older sister. In the
painting, Munch captures the pale complexion,
colorless lips, and hopeless stare of a child
weakened and finally conquered by illness.
Beyond caring, she looks past her grieving
mother to a certain, tragic future. (Mittler. Art in
Focus. 537)
• Pictures like this shocked viewers when the
paintings were first seen. Munch’s figures
seemed crude and grotesque when compared to
the colorful and light hearted visions of the
Impressionists, who were enjoying great
popularity at the time. Munch’s works, however,
were in keeping with the period in which he
lived, a period when writers and artists were
turning their attention inward. Like Munch, they
were interested in exploring feelings and
emotions rather than describing outward
appearances. (Mittler. Art in Focus. 537)
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
• Kirchner painted a series of street scenes in
Berlin, the capital of Germany, and the most
populous city in Europe before the First World
War.
• It was a city brimming with culture; there were 6
opera companies in the city and over 30
theatres. Dance halls and eating establishments
offered non stop entertainment for the
bourgeoisie, who loved to dress up and join the
parades of fashionable people on the streets.
• There was a seedy down side to this cultural
glitter, of course. Prostitution was rife, and
traditional values and customs were being lost in
the mad rush to acquire material goods and
seek pleasure.
• The people in Kirchner’s street scenes look
anonymous. They are all feathers and finery
and have lost their individual humanity. They
seem to wear haughty masks.
• Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
• Street Scene, Berlin
• 1913
Kirchner
News
1914
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Kirchner
Women in Blue
1913
• The slashing diagonals and angular,
attenuated shapes of these figures are
characteristic of Kirchner’s style.
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Kirchner
Potsdammer Platz
1914
Kathe Kollwitz
• One of the themes to which Kollwitz returned throughout her
career was death. Her husband was a physician in one of the
poorest sections of Berlin who offered his services for any
price his clientele could afford to pay in cash or goods.
• Although Kollwitz hated war, one of her sons was drafted and
killed during the first World War
• After the First World War, she constructed a sculpture group
showing a number of mothers in a circle around their children
with their arms linked to enclose them and subsequently made
a woodcut on the same theme, "Seed corn must not be
destroyed."
• Although in many of her prints her characters struggle mightily
against death, in her last series of prints, death comes almost
as a long-awaited friend, bringing relief from a life whose pain
has grown unbearable.
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Kathe
Kollwitz
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Kollwitz
Poverty
1893
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Kollwitz
Death
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Kollwitz
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Kollwitz
Woman
with her
dead child
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Kollwitz
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Seed for the
planting
shall not
be ground
up
• Kollwitz
• Woman Greeting
Death
• 1934
• This work shows a woman – frail, weak, and defeated –
extending her hand to Death. Having exhausted her
determination and her strength in a desperate struggle
for survival, she now acknowledges defeat and quietly
surrenders herself and her children to the inevitable. Too
weak even to show fear, she reaches out with one hand
while gently pushing her children forward with the other.
One child, terrified, turns away, but the other stares
directly at Death. Perhaps he is too young to recognize
the stranger who takes his mother’s hand and will soon
reach out for his. (Mittler. Art in Focus. 537)
Paula Modersohn Becker
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Paula Modersohn
Becker
• At the age of 22, Modersohn Becker encountered the
artistic community of Worpswede. In this "village", artists
had retreated to protest against the domination of the art
academy and life in the big city.
• At Worpswede, Paula took painting lessons from the
asrtist Mackensen. The main subjects were the life of the
farmers and the northern German landscape.
• She also fell in love during this period, and in 1901 she
married a fellow Worpswede painter, Otto Modersohn.
• (Wikipedia)
Between 1900 and 1907, Paula made several
extended trips to Paris. During one of her
residencies in Paris, she took courses at
theEcole des Beaux Arts. She visited
contemporary exhibitions often, and was
particularly intrigued with the work of Paul
Cezanne. Other post impressionists were
especially influential, including Vincent Van
Gogh and Paul Gauguin. (Wikipedia
• On her last trip to Paris in 1906, she produced a
body of paintings from that gave her
considerable satisfaction. During this period of
painting, she produced her initial nude self
portraits (something no woman artist had done
before) and portraits of friends such as the poet
Rainer Maria Rilke. Some critics consider this
period of her art production to be the strongest
and most compelling.
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• In 1907, Modersohn-Becker returned to
her husband in Worpswede. Their
relationship, which had been particularly
strained in 1906, had taken a turn towards
improvement.
• Paula's long-lived wish to conceive and
bear a child was fulfilled. Her daughter
Mathilde (Tillie) was born on November 2,
1907. Paula and Otto were joyous.
• Modersohn Becker was a highly
expressive painter, whose work is
characterized by rounded forms and
decorative nature motifs.
Paula Modersohn Becker
Mother and Child
• Mother and Child was painted during her
pregnancy, when she anticipated
motherhood with excitement.
• 19 days after giving birth she died of an
embolism at age 31.
Paula Modersohn Becker – Self
Portrait
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Paula Modersohn
Becker
The Old Peasant
Woman
1905
Die Blaue Reiter
• A second group of
German artists formed a
group known as Die
Blaue Reiter, or The Blue
Rider. The name came
from a painting by one of
the artists in the group:
Wassily Kandinsky.
• These artists were
centered in the southern
German city of Munich.
The Blue Rider School
• Some of the Artists associated with the
Blue Rider School were:
• Wassily Kandinsky 1866 – 1944
• Paul Klee 1879 – 1940
• Franz Marc1880 – 1916
Wassily Kandinsky
Abstract Expressionism
• Kandinsky is thought to be the first artist to cross the line
into pure abstraction.
• The Post Impressionists had begun the movement away
from realism. The Fauves took liberties with colour and
abandoned the effort to portray space in three
dimensions.
• The German Expressionists were more interested in
exploring psychological inner worlds than in faithfully
depicting the natural world.
• Now Kandinsky completely abandoned the necessity of
using subject matter that referenced the natural world.
Kandinsky – Transverse Line
Kandinsky – Composition VI
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Kandinsky
Booom
Franz Marc
Franz Marc - Horses
• Franz Marc painted animals to express his
spiritual longing for a return to a more primitive,
instinctive, natural mode of living.
• The science of psychology was new at the time
and the work of Freud and Jung (Germans) had
led to a new awareness of man as an animal.
Marc believed that human consciousness
alienated mankind from the rest of the animal
world, leaving humans strangers in the universe.
• Franz Marc used colour in a symbolic way.
• He developed his own colour theory and
symbolism, which equated the three primary
colours with qualities and emotions. In its
simplest terms, Marc associated blue with
masculinity, and red and yellow with femininity
since they are more earthy colours, but he also
associated yellow with joy and happiness. Blue
was viewed by Marc throughout his career to be
the most deeply spiritual of the three colours.
Franz Marc – The Wolves. 1913
Wolves . 1913
• Marc’s Wolves expresses his dismay
about the horrors of the Balkan War which
would shortly lead to the outbreak of World
War I.
• The wolves are symbolic of the human
violence that was unfolding.
• The purple clouds look like explosions.
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Franz Marc
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Tiger
• Franz Marc
• Tiger
• Note the medieval
influence in this
painting. The jewel tones
are broken up with heavy
black outlines, as in the
stained glass windows of
gothic cathedrals.
• Franz Marc – Blue
Horses
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Franz Marc
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Blue Horses
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Horses were
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always
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considered by Marc
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to
be that was most
»
beautiful in the
»
natural world.
• Horses were
always considered,
by Marc, to be
representative of
all that was most
beautiful in the
natural world.
• In 1914, with the outbreak of the First
World War (1914-18) Marc volunteered for
military service, and in 1916 was killed in
action, at the age of 36.
Franz Marc – The Fate of the
Animals
• Max Beckmann
• Self Portrait
Max Beckmann – Family Picture
Max Beckmann - Departure
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Max Pechstein
• (wood cut) Self
Portrait
Pechstein - Head
Pechstein – Ballet Dancers
Egon Schiele
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Egon Schiele
The Artist’s Wife
Egon Schiele – The Family
• This painting is unfinished. Schiele's wife
died in the world-wide Spanish flu
epidemic in 1918; she was six months
pregnant with their first child. Schiele died
three days later of the same cause. He
was twenty-eight.
Egon Schiele
Girls