Introduction
It is a known feature of human existence that we continue to learn from the lessons of the past, if only to repeat their same mistakes. This is as true in the art world as it is true in other facets of life. However, art historians typically recognize a radical shift in the underlying philosophical approach to art occurring around the turn of the twentieth century that surpasses the changes that swept the art world following the great Renaissance of the 1400s-1600s.
Although the Renaissance brought tremendous change in artistic approaches based upon the traditional art of Greek and Roman statuary, the Expressionist movement introduced a profound rejection of all traditional ways of the past and a completely new approach to the ideas of art and its role in human life. Through their work and artistic conception, the Expressionists introduced a darker side to art as it turned inward and began exploring the mysteries of inner human experience and the sometimes-frightening shapes this could engender.
Although building off of the emotional concepts of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists that immediately preceded them, the Expressionists were credited with the explosion of ideas that characterized the middle period of the 20th century and continue to influence the art world today. This is in spite of the fact that, as a movement, the Expressionists only existed for a decade, from 1910 to 1920.
By rejecting the forms of the natural, outer world and focusing on the inner world of the human experience free of rigidly defined form, shape and artistic approach, the Expressionists opened up an entirely new realm of self-exploration for both the artist and the audience that continues to influence our understanding of art today. Earlier artistic movements began to explore emotional expression within their work as it was felt in response to exterior influences. However, it was the Expressionists who changed the art world forever by exploring ways in which the workings of the human mind itself might be explored in its process of individuation and incorporation with greater society.
Main body
It is undeniable that the art of Expressionism owes a great deal of its inspiration to the ideas of the Post-Impressionists, yet there remains a fundamental difference in these two approaches. Writing in 1918 regarding the differences between the two periods, Schwabe defines the attitude of Impressionism as “one of passivity before nature, of which attitude van Gogh, through all his febrile intensity, is found to be the final and highest development” while “Expressionism may be defined as the concentrated presentation of emotion sought for within the artist’s consciousness – an insistence on feeling rather than on the visualization and reproduction of the external world” (Schwabe 140).
While the Impressionist painters did not focus all of their attention on the scenes of nature alone, the primary focus of their art was in capturing the emotional impressions of the moment as it is externally presented to the artist/viewer. In doing this, the Impressionist artists managed to realize, at about the same time that photography was proving them correct, that we don’t see every detail in the scenes that confront us, but instead manage to get an impression of the view through the basic shapes, colors and play of light that catch at the edge of our vision as they are informed by the few elements we may happen to focus upon (Gombrich 524-528). The Post-Impressionists took this one step further and added personal visual emotional reaction to their art.
Artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Edvard Munch deliberately exaggerated the types of Impressionistic distortions evidenced in the paintings of artists such as Monet in order to highlight their emotional reactions to the subject matter being depicted. Van Gogh utilized heavy impasto in his paintings to give the paint itself a means of expressing these emotional reactions while he deliberately exaggerated color contrasts to further highlight the emotional content.
Munch also exaggerated elements of his paintings, such as the distortions seen in the head and landscape lines of “The Scream” as a means of focusing upon the emotional impact of the moment being depicted rather than the actual visual scene. “The Expressionists did allow themselves to be influenced quite considerably by the works of Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Robert Delauney, James Ensor and Edvard Munch” (Elger & Beyer 10). From these Post-Impressionist painters, the Expressionists would take their experimental colors and their attempt at depicting the psychological impact of the event, but would change the focus from an external reaction to the internal experience.
In attempting to refocus the attention of art from the external world of impressions to the internal world of experience, Expressionism also represented a fundamental shift in artistic direction in turning its back on the natural forms of nature as a necessary means of expression. Part of this shift in focus was probably brought on by the significant changes that continued to occur during this time period.
Although the Industrial Revolution, which impacted the entire world, had its beginnings in the mid-1800s, the changes it brought about were sometimes slow to be fully realized in the art world. As Burchill (1966) points out, it was during this period in history that the harnessing of electricity made communication across long distances possible through the telegraph, long hours possible through the safe and inexpensive provision of light after dark and new machines available for many different purposes. This invention alone introduced an entirely new way of living life that could be fully divorced from the natural world of the past.
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution had forced a reconsideration of man’s place in the universe and upset centuries-old religious beliefs. The properties of the atom were also being discovered during this time. “The impact of these discoveries lay a quarter of a century in the future, but all the foundations of twentieth century science and technology were laid in the Age of Progress” (Burchill 38).
Germany was at the forefront of this wave of progress, leading the world in technology and innovation by 1900. Spirits were also brought to an all-time high through the invention of synthetic dyes, which made it possible for the world to experience vivid color for the first time ever, introducing a tremendous psychological burst of emotional energy to feed the Post-Impressionists and the optimism of the early Expressionists.
Perhaps most important of the new inventions coming out of the mid- to late-nineteenth century was the shift that was taking place in mankind’s capacity to think. Rather than basing all of our knowledge upon myth and superstition, mankind was learning to apply systematic thought processes to explanations regarding the natural world and his role within it. This naturally led to artists of all kinds reassessing what they ‘knew’ about representing the ‘real’ world.
As Gombrich explains, artists were being asked to “sit down before nature and paint it to the best of his abilities” (561). However, artists since the beginning of time have had difficulty defining just what it is that they ‘see’ as opposed to what they ‘know’. These ideas are only made more concrete with the increasing knowledge of psychology and science. “It happens that we make mistakes in seeing … as soon as we start to take a pencil and draw, the whole idea of surrendering passively to what is called our sense impressions becomes really an absurdity. If we look out of the window we can see the view in the thousand different ways” (Gombrich 562).
Previous generations had already attempted to capture what was ‘seen’ through representation in primitive art and through scientific approximation in Renaissance art. Impressionism had attempted to capture what was felt and none of these was felt to have captured the desired effect of denoting the ‘essence’ of the moment. In attempting to find a new means of expressing this essence, suggesting it to a greater degree or highlighting the probability that there is something inexpressible beyond the shadings of the painting, Expressionists sought freedom from the rigidly defined traditional symbols of the classic art schools and searched for new means of expression through primitive or highly mechanistic forms.
In light of the tremendous changes in lifestyle that had taken place within the space of a single generation, the Expressionist artists had to recognize that the traditional concepts and universal ideas of the past were breaking down and losing their meanings. Kandinsky, for example, in his presentation of his own artistic theories, outlines his feelings of disgust for the absence of spirit in traditional art.
In illustrating the necessity for art to continue to evolve, always developing new ways of speaking of the true concerns of the day, Kandinsky also illustrates how art that becomes closer to the truth of human nature also becomes more and more abstract in its expression. However, this is a necessary progression in Kandinsky’s approach as “every man who steeps himself in the spiritual possibilities of this art is a valuable helper in the building of the spiritual pyramid which will some day reach to heaven” (Kandinsky 22).
Thus, Kandinsky is calling for a return to the spiritual and the sublime in art as a means of recapturing the sense of religion that had been lost in the focus on science and technology that inundated his age. In order to provide art with this sublime element, Kandinsky indicates painting should be a response to the artist’s inner need rather than an attempt to fulfill the audience’s desires or to remain in vogue with contemporary forms. By drawing what was on the surface, rather than attempting to capture the inner nature of the object, allowing the artist’s inner spirit to guide the brushes, Kandinsky says that the audience is able to gain their own appreciation of the spirit of the subject as it was expressed and experienced by the artist, forcing the suggestion of the sublime to enter into consideration.
In keeping with these ideas, Ettlinger points out how some of the Expressionist artists, such as Picasso, turned to primitive art as a means of attempting to find the most basic and universal expressions of the spiritual nature of the universe. While the immediate predecessors of Expressionism had already been involved in including the observed nature of primitive art in their works, it was the Expressionists who adopted the ideas themselves and applied them to their own experience.
Picasso, for example, brought the concepts of primitive ‘negro sculpture’ into his work as a means of illustrating the manifestation of his vision upon his senses (Ettlinger 192). While several artists, including Kirchner, would attempt to bring primitive art into their work as a means of capturing a sublime and fully instinctual element, it was discovered that there did not seem to be any truly universal symbols beyond the very basic geometric shapes of triangle, square and circle, thus leading to the more elemental and minimalist approaches taken by later artists.
This abstraction of images was seen by Mondrian as being the only means by which an artist could free himself from the external sufficiently to express the more important internal understanding of the artist: “That which distinguishes him (the non-figurative artist) from the figurative is the fact that in his creations he frees himself from particular impressions which he receives from outside and he breaks loose from the domination of the individual inclination within him” (Mondrian, 1964 cited in Levine 22). However, eventually even this was recognized to be untrue.
Even before the onset of World War I and the horrors this experience would unleash in the minds of the artists, there was evidence of schism within the ranks of the Expressionists. Schwabe (1918), writing from within the time period of the movement, characterizes this deep split in the movement by placing Kandinsky and Pechstein at opposite poles from each other. In defining Kandinsky’s approach, Schwabe says “Kandinsky pursues what may be called the intensive method, an effort at expression detached from all relation to natural forms” (141).
This is contrasted against the work of Pechstein who uses nature as a basis for the more mechanical forms of the art produced. Thus, while Pechstein can be seen to be fostering an approach along the lines of the geometric cubists and the mechanical artists of the future, a direction also followed by Mondrian, Kandinsky begins to bridge the difference between Western artistic approaches and the more spiritually minimalist approaches of Japanese philosophies. A great deal of these differences, both before and after the war, were shaped by the socio-political climate then brewing in the state of Germany as the country relatively quickly entered into war.
Spirits in Germany were relatively high during the initial years of the century. Germany was doing well as an international power and its leaders were becoming eager to go to war with Russia (Roberts 238). However, “the nation remained divided into its various groups and castes, separated one from the other by the most rigid and stiff lines of demarcation and social discrimination” (Kurtz 71).
As a result, there were several minority movements that opposed the status quo and began establishing their own centers of intellectual training. The confusion all this prosperity and poverty, education of the state and education of the populace and art of tradition and art of impression all combined to contribute to the Expressionist ideas of formless spirituality, shapeless emotion and non-symbolic expression. “The war, which was welcomed with nationalist enthusiasm in the whole of Germany, was regarded by the Expressionists as a powerful catharsis. They believed that it would destroy the ancient order, which they had felt to be so oppressive, and that a better society would arise from its ruins” (Elger & Beyer 15).
When Germany acted seemingly on a whim to declare war on two fronts, and then the war began to drag on, the spirit of Germany’s people, and the artists who had brought mindfulness and spirituality into their work, began to be affected as well. “The longer the trench war dragged on, the more there was a change of attitude among the other artists, too: Dix’s paintings changed into an accusation of militarism and the bourgeoisie.
Kirchner, Beckmann and Kokoschka could not bear the horrors of trench warfare; but had physical and psychological breakdowns and were discharged. Many other Expressionists – Marc, Macke, Morgner – died in action at an early age” (Elger & Beyer 15). Following the Great War, the Expressionist movement began to splinter into numerous factions, each exploring the concepts of mindfulness, spirituality and transcendent expression that had been introduced as a unique feature of Expressionism.
Tracing the various art movements that emerged following World War I, Elger and Beyer point out that “Wassily Kandinsky was probably the most radical example because his Expressionism just before 1914 led to abstract art in a series of consistent steps.
On the other hand, there was Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus manifesto, which started off a school of art that was unparalleled in its demand for functionality and clarity of form, while at the same time still totally permeated by an Expressionist language” (Elger & Beyer 7). From Kandinsky’s work, we continue to have a collection of artists who choose to explore their expressive qualities through abstract shapes, randomly placed paint splatters or other intriguing means of application and seemingly un-artistic approaches such as that of the Young British Artists in their hyper-realistic sculptures and images.
The early stages of the Bauhaus can also be found in the reduction of forms to their most basic shapes, stripping away the unnecessary and attempting to discover the spiritual center. From the Bauhaus can be traced many of the forms of the modern world, including the now-traditional rectangular form of the urban skyscraper and the minimalist forms of the ‘traditional’ classroom tubular chair.
Also attempting to trace through the spiritual elements of the Expressionist movement, other splinter groups followed still other scientific advancement. For example, the ideas of Sigmund Freud, which are now relatively widely known, combined with the spiritual goals of Expressionism to give rise to Surrealism and its expression of the inner dream-state of the artist. Freud’s ideas include the subdivisions of the human mind into the subconscious and the conscious (Downs 20).
Within this distinction, Freud says the true, natural inner nature of the man can only be found within the much larger and mostly secret labyrinth of the subconscious mind. While this subconscious mind cannot be directly accessed by the conscious mind, hints and suggestions from it can be received through dream imagery. This has helped to give rise to fantasy art and to the animated films that have entertained the world’s children for the past two generations through their ability to transcend reality and enter an entirely different ‘magical’ plane. Artists practicing trompe l’oeil are also the descendents of these Expressionists as they demonstrate through their art the degree to which the human eye can be fooled into mistaking obvious illusion for reality.
Conclusion
In tracing the foundational concepts of contemporary artistic movements, it can be seen that today’s artists continue to attempt the basic goals of the Expressionists as they differentiated from the Impressionists before them. The Impressionist painters of a generation before focused their attention on illustrating the tricks of the eye, the play of light and the impressions of the moment, breaking ground in numerous important areas as they explored the fallacy of ‘painting what they saw’ and began to incorporate expressions of emotion within their work.
However, the Expressionists introduced an entirely new concept to the idea of painting in introducing the focus on inner spirituality as expressed from within rather than being imposed from without. Even in the early days of the movement, there were different ideas of how to best bring this expression into physical form, but the interruption of World War I into its development created a deep split between the two major approaches.
Following the war, the basic concepts of Expressionism continued to be explored through these various approaches, giving rise to movements such as Surrealism, Abstraction and Minimalism. Expressionism can be considered the founder of all modern art because it was this movement in particular that introduced the concepts that continue to remain the foundation of all modern art movements today.
Works Cited
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Downs, Robert B. “Sigmund Freud Publishes The Interpretation of Dreams: 1900.” 1900-1920: The Twentieth Century. Zacharias, Gary (ed.). Events that Changed the World series. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2004: 18-26.
Elger, Dietmar & Hugh Beyer. Expressionism: A Revolution in German Art. Frankfurt: Taschen, 2002: 7-15.
Ettlinger, L.D. “German Expressionism and Primitive Art.” The Burlington Magazine. Vol. 110, N. 781, (1968): 191-201.
Gombrich, E.H. “Experimental Art.” The Story of Art. London: Phaidon, 1995: 557-598.
Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. MTH Sadler (Trans.). Dover Publications, 1977.
Kurtz, Harold. “The Summit of the German Volcano.” The Second Reich: Kaiser Wilhelm II and his Germany. New York: American Heritage Press, 1970: 63-84.
Levine, Edward M. “Abstract Expressionism: The Mystical Experience.” Art Journal. Vol. 31, N. 1, (1971): 22-25.
Roberts, J.M. “The Great War and the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Revolution.” Twentieth Century: The History of the World, 1901 to 2000. New York: Viking, 1999: 238-270.
Schwabe, Randolph. “Expressionism.” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs. Vol. 33, N. 187, (1918): 140-141.