Expressing Existence The Rise of Expressionism

The Expressionist art movement began in the late 19th century and lasted until the mid-1920s. With roots in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, Expressionism abandoned realistic, historically accurate art in favour of exaggerated, dark, and distorted realities. It sought to evoke feelings and moods rather than represent physical reality.

Drawing on Romanticism, it emphasised artists’ subjective ideas and experiences of intense, psychological emotions. Expressionist art encapsulated the era’s anxieties by tapping into spiritual and existential concerns.

The late 19th century was a period of tremendous change. New technology and industrial urbanisation had transformed cities and the lives of working-class people, and not for the better. Many lived in abject poverty and died young because they were subjected to dangerous and dehumanising work by companies favouring production over human life. The crime was rampant, and mental health issues were at an all-time high. Spirituality was in decline, as were feelings of authentic existence and experiences.

An existential dread hung over the world; people were anxious about humanity’s changing relationship with the world and themselves. Artists who positively dealt with this existentialism were known as Impressionists. Artists who embraced this movement, which lasted approximately from the 1860s to the 1880s, moved away from traditional art to bright and coloured work designed to highlight the natural beauty of the world and the spiritual connection they felt with and their yearning to return to it. These artists looked outwards.

However, as industrialisation and urbanisation increased, artists felt increasingly detached from their physical surroundings and were wracked with psychological turmoil. Many were depressed, anxious, and stressed. These artists, Post-Impressionists, would lay the groundwork for Expressionism.

Artists like Edvard Munch embraced the darker aspects of art by using it to infuse their thoughts and feelings into their work. They embraced thick, swirling brushstrokes, contrasting colours, and alienated subjects to explore dark themes like isolation, madness, depression, grief, and existentialism. These artists looked inward. The introspective and raw emotive style of artists like Munch paved the way for Expressionism.

While Expressionism encompasses numerous artists and styles, its origins lie predominantly in early 20th-century Germany. In the city of Dresden in 1905, a group of German students - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Erich Heckel - formed the group Die Brücke (The Bridge). These men were architecture students who wished to become painters. They wanted to break away from neo-classicism and sought to convey raw emotions instead.

They did not, however, refer to themselves as Expressionists. The term did not come into the public consciousness until Czech art historian Antonin Matejcek used it to describe work he considered the opposite of Impressionism. The result of these groups is characterised by evocative, dark, and unnatural colour pigments that conveyed the artists’ inner emotions.

They applied exaggerated, jagged (often violent), and distorted brush strokes to depict less-than-socially-acceptable subjects such as nightclubbers, dancers, prostitutes, and the city’s lower working class. Their actual paint application is also free and heavily textured to evoke powerful emotions. Their canvases were infused with highly charged angst.

Their work emphasised the grotesque horror of humanity’s growing alienation towards themselves and their fellow human beings thanks to industrialisation. Contemporary urbanisation was conveyed through art that evoked intense feelings of violence and disgust. Modern life was not something to embrace, Expressionists suggested; it was something to be feared.

Expressionism was reignited in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s with the creation of the avant-garde Abstract Expressionism. This movement utilised bright colours and spontaneous brush strokes to convey the intense emotions and ideas of the artists. One of the most famous Abstract Expressionist artists is Jackson Pollock. By the late 1970s, Neo-Expressionism had emerged in response to minimalist and conceptualist art. Drawing on their German predecessors, these artists represented subjects in visceral, evocative, and intense ways through free-flowing and heavily textured brush strokes.