Summary
Highlights
The lecture introduces German Expressionism, focusing on two groups: Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. It sets the context of the early 20th century, a secular period marked by a search for identity and new forms of expression, moving away from 19th-century sentimentality and a need for the church to dictate morals. Expressionism is defined as art emphasizing emotional content in both subject matter and formal elements, with roots in Romanticism and an influence from the Fauves, utilizing color as expression.
Die Brücke, led by Ernst Ludwick Kirchner, aimed to bridge the old and the new, linking revolutionary elements. They disliked academic art and popular impressionism, were against industrialization and materialism, and sought to break with the past amidst the tense pre-World War I era in Europe. Influenced by Van Gogh, the French Fauves, and African art, their work is characterized by hard angularity, jagged forms, and a focus on unsettling scenes, often depicting the harsher aspects of life, such as prostitutes or eroticized children, creating tension over harmony.
Examining Kirchner's 'Street at Dresden' (1907-1908), the video highlights its dark, dreamlike quality, confined and tilted space, and claustrophobic feel, conveying a negative view of contemporary urban life through confrontational style and jarring colors. Emil Nolde's 'Crucifixion' (1912) from 'A Life of Christ' triptych is presented as Die Brücke's interpretation of religion—harsh, ugly, and emotionally unsettling, with exaggerated features and a flattened, claustrophobic space, emphasizing raw emotion.
Der Blaue Reiter, centered around Wassily Kandinsky, is introduced as a more far-reaching and influential movement. While also skeptical of industrial society, this group retreated from it rather than directly critiquing it. Kandinsky, initially a lawyer, became interested in non-objective art, believing art should express spiritual rather than material reality. He pursued spiritual transcendence, focusing on inner creative force over learned skills, which led him to believe that natural subject matter was a hindrance to true artistic expression.
Kandinsky is credited as the first artist to achieve a new level of abstraction, breaking the representational barrier. He believed the entire painting didn't need to be representational, allowing for spiritual representation without depicting the natural world. 'Sketch for Composition 2' (1908) is shown as an early, still somewhat representational yet highly abstracted work, rooted in biblical themes like the flood. In contrast, 'Composition 7' (circa 1913-1914) demonstrates total abstraction, a study of color, form, and line that purely represents the artist's inner spirit, emphasizing freedom, spontaneity, and an unpremeditated image.