Expressionism
Not how the world looks but how it feels: anguish turned outward in distorted form and raw colour
How to recognise it
- distorted, elongated figures and faces
- jarring colour: green faces, red skies
- harsh angular strokes, rough surfaces
- anxious city and loneliness in crowds
- woodcuts with stark black-and-white contrast
Why it emerged
Rapid urbanisation in Germany and Austria-Hungary, a crisis of faith and Freud's unconscious pushed artists to paint inner states. Die Brücke (Dresden, 1905) and Der Blaue Reiter (Munich, 1911) broke with academy and Impressionism.
Examples
The Scream1893 · Edvard MunchAnxiety made visible, the prototype of Expressionism and a global icon of dreadStreet, Berlin1913 · Ernst Ludwig KirchnerStreetwalkers and passers-by as sharp green-pink wedges, the nervous beat of the metropolis
The Fate of the Animals1913 · Franz MarcAnimals torn by shafts of colour, a premonition of the war in which Marc died in 1916
Einstein Tower1919–1921 · Erich MendelsohnSolar observatory built to test relativity, its form seemingly moulded from clayMore in this style
- c. 1912 Portrait of Wally — Egon Schiele
- 1912 Pierrot lunaire — Arnold Schoenberg
Meanwhile elsewhere
- Ming and Qing Porcelain Asia
- Peredvizhniki (The Wanderers) Eastern Europe & Russia
- Post-Impressionism Europe
- Art Nouveau Europe
- Cubism Europe
- Russian avant-garde Eastern Europe & Russia
- Harlem Renaissance Americas
- Modern architecture (International Style) Whole world
- Constructivism Eastern Europe & Russia
- Art Deco Europe
- Mexican muralism Americas
- Surrealism Europe