Artist analysis
The German expressionists.
The piece of work I have chosen to write about is a lino print.It was completed by Max Beckmann in
.It comes from the movement called the German expressionsists. I think the works portray the horrors
of what happened during the first world war, In these piece of artwork I can see despair and fear on
peoples faces .I think the artists are trying to say that they rejected the old Kaisers ways and how he
plundered his nation into war .In a way they were mirroring what was happening in France when the
impressionists in the late 1800s rejected the art of the past such as neoclassicism. What happened there
was that impressionism was the starting point for movements like pointillism and cubism (like we
studied in year ten for our coursework). The German expressionist rejected the work of the Weimar
republic and Kaiser Germany .They wanted to reject this art and prove that the war was bad for society
and wanted to show the horrors of war. They wanted to go back to the past and imitate the great
naturalistic Renaissance masters like Durer who created wonderful woodcuts The new objectivity
movement included artist like Max Beckmann Kate Kollwitz Emile George Groz and they wants to show
that the world was “the world as it was ugly, sick and mendacious” The specific picture I am looking at is
a portrait by man by Max Beckmann. In the foreground is the man’s protruding shoulder in the middle
middle ground is his face which contains wavy hair and in the background there are aggressive lines
and what looks like a plant and pot. The piece is painted drawn initially and then traced on to the wood
.The piece is made out of either wood .The technique of has been used is cutting using lino or wood
cutting instruments .The texture appears to be quite corse and unrefined because that is the nature of
cutting from lino or wood unless you use a Therefore the piece looks quite unrefined but lively and
aggressive .The marks that have been used are of variable size and contain small dashes but also
longer thicker lines .The patterns are quite curved in places and I like the fact he cuts out white marks
on dark areas (on the cheeks) and then reverts to black marks on light areas(as in the forehead) .It’s a
good balance .They create a really vibrant and lively print effect. The shapes and form in the work are
used to convey the human head. As you can see Beckmann uses some three directional lines on the right
hand side of the forehead to create three dimensional depth because it looks by adding these marks
that the forehead has three dimensional depth and is turning. The tone in the print is basically black and
white because this is the nature of a one tone print. The colour is nonexistent but I have seen lino and
wood prints which do contain colour but to do this you need to register the block correctly and then cut
out the lightest colour first and then add the darker ones later on but it is dependent on really good
planning and making sure that the successive prints are placed directly on top of one another in the
right place. I think the story behind this piece is that the artist wanted to show the misery of war to
wake people up into denouncing it and making a better future for everybody .I think the artist wanted
us to feel a sense of injustice as to what happened in the war effected the individual for worse .I think
the artist is trying to say that this kind of work would make people think differently about the world
.The piece of work makes me think of what the horrors of war can do to you because in other pieces
you can see .When Hitler came to power and the world was drifting into another world war he
denounced the work of the expressionists and many of then went into hiding. Some like Otto Dix
committed suicide .This was a very disturbing period for these artists who were not allowed to practice
their trade without the fear of death. I chose to write about this piece of work because I really like the
expressive aggressive marks .I like the work because its loose and create the sensation of movement
.What works in this piece is the fact that the artist has produced a man with a really expressive face .I
have been inspired by this piece of work to produce my own lino which has elements of the German
expressionists style.
Using this analysis in my work
Translation
I have produced a copy of the artists work concentrating on aspects of his work. To do this I have used
as a medium. In copying his work I had to understand his technique which is .during the demonstration
I realized that in order to copy the style I had to . First of all I had to
. The next stages of the
process were
. Finally I produced a valid copy by
I had to I did make mistakes which
were
.I managed to rectify them by . I think my copy of the artist is reflective of his style because .If
I could have completed the copy again I would have improved my technique by
I have been inspired by the artists work because
. The style of work fits into my project “I me
Mine ‘because
. The artist has inspired me to complete a copy in his style because . I have
taken an aspect of the work and tried to use it in my work because . The aspect I have been most
impressed with is the artist’s composition, colour combinations. Media use tonal arrangement because
Using the teacher demonstration and links to you tube techniques I have copied the artist’s style by .
The artifacts I have used are similar to the artist’s objects because
, if I could copy the object again
in his style I would improve my work by
.
Gallery visit
In order to get a better insight to my artist work I visited the museum. The museum is located in .it
was built in and it houses a collection based on . The amount of people who visit the museum per
year is . My artistic link was in the area of
. I thought that the museum was
.I
completed a primary source drawing of
in the museum which links to my project because
When completing my primary source images I took some photographs.
The title of this show is actually a misnomer; a more accurate title would indicate that this is the art that the
Kaiser hated, that the right-wingers who helped to bring about the downfall of the Weimar Republic hated,
and that the militarists who ultimately threw their support to the Nazis hated. And yet, it is still amisnomer:
in a sense, the term German Expressionism really means Modernist works done in Germany and Austria
from the late 19th century until the Nazis took control, after which the works went underground, but, in
many cases, continued to be made until the artist making them died. Just as French Impressionism
reallymeant Modernist works made in France by people who had in common only their rejection of the
official art that preceded them and that dominated the salons when the artists whom we now call the
Impressionists began trying to show their works. It spawned in due time other movements like PostImpressionism, Pointilism, the Nabis, the Symbolists, and ultimately the modernists who turned away from
these variants of their predecessors and gave birth to Cubism, Fauvism, and Surrrealism; so the German
Modernists had varied interests: The artists of the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) Group—Kandinsky, Klee,
Munter, Marc, and Macke—were moving toward abstraction, the artists of Die Brücke (the Bridge), led by
Erich Heckel, E. L. Kirchner, Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde, and Karl Schmidt-Rottlff were rejecting their
immediate predecessors and trying to create an art that linked the great German artists of the Renaissance,
especially Dürer, whose masterful woodcuts seemed the perfect vehicle for a new renaissance of German art,
with an art for the present and the future. The first World War, which seemed to artists like Kokoschka and
Dix to offer a chance to see heroism in action and perhaps to be heroic (Dix was a machine gunner,
Kokoschka was a cavalry officer), quickly led instead to horror and mental breakdowns, and the aftermath of
the war led to cynicism and disgust at the society that replaced the autocratic rule of the Kaiser. The Dadaists
(including Hoch, Schlicter, and Grosz as well as Duchamp, Arp, and Picabia)) began with a feeling of disgust
and hatred for the war and moved on to reject the values that allowed it to occur, nationalist politics and a
culture of materialism. They rejected the conventions of their society and the art that had nurtured and
sustained that society, cultivating a sense of the absurd and seeking artistic techniques to embody their
contempt for it. The Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) group, including Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George
Grosz, Rudolf Schlichter, and Georg Tappert, hoped through their art to change their society by, as Grosz
wrote, convincing "the world that it was ugly, sick, and mendacious." Kollwitz and Barlach, whose work
predated all of these movements, yet agreed politically and artistically in the need to hold a mirror up to
society so that it might see how much it needed to change itself. Artists like Meidner and Hofer do not easily
fit into these groups, yet are clearly of their time, Hofer seeking symbolic forms to suggest the possibility of a
more ideal life and the reality of approaching disasters, Meidner imagining the apocaltpse to come and
portraying the passionate intensity of those who would bring it about.
Selcted Bibliography: Stephanie Barron and Wolf-Dieter Dube, ed., German Expressionism: Art and Society
(NY: Rizzoli, 1997); Stephanie Barron, et al, German Expressionist Prints and Drawings. The Robert Gore
Rifkind Center for Expressionist Studies, Vol. 1 (LA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989); Stephanie
Barron, ed, German Expressionism 1915-1925: The Second Generation (LA: Los Angeles County Museum of
Art, 1988); Frances Carey and Anthony Griffiths, The Print in Germany 1880--1933: The Age of
Expressionism (London: British Museum, 1984, 1993); Stephanie D'Allessandro, et al, German Expressionist
Prints: The Marcia and Granvil Specks Collections (Milwaukee: Milwaukee Art Museum, 2003); Bruce Davis,
German Expressionist Prints and Drawings. The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for Expressionist Studies, Vol. 2:
Catalogue of the Collection (LA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art / Prestel, 1989);Bruce Davis, German
Expressionist Prints and Drawings: The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies Elvejhem
Museum of Art, The Graphic image: German Expressionist Prints (Madison: Elvejhem Museum of Art, 1983);
Reinhold Heller, Brücke: German Expressionist Prints from the Granvil and Marcia Specks Collection
(Evanston: Mary and Leight Block Gallery, Northwestern Uninversity, 1988); Orrel P. Reed Jr., German
Expressionist Art: The Robert Gore Rifkind Collection—Prints, Drawings, Illustrated Books, Periodicals, Posters
(Los Angeles: Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles, 1977); Andrew Robison,
ed., German Expressionist Prints from the Collection of Ruth and Jacob Kainen (Washington, D.C.: National
Gallery of Art, 1985); Serge Sabarsky, Graphics of the German Expressionists (Mt. Kisco NY: Moyer Bell Ltd,
1984); Peter Selz, German Expressionist Painting (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957, 1974); Horst
Uhr, Masterpeices of German Expressionism at the Detroit Institute of Arts (NY: Hudson Hills Press, 1982);
Shane Weller, ed, German Expressionist Woodcuts (NY: Dover, 1994).
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