Expressionism

Expressionism, in simplified terms, was some kind of a German

modern art version of Fauvism. The expressionist movement was
organized in two groups of German painters. One was called Die
Bruecke, literally meaning The Bridge. The group was located in
Dresden with the artists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel,
Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, Otto Mueller and Karl Schmidt-
Rottluff. After World War I, this group was followed by another
group of artists, calling themselves Dresdner Sezession. The
second Expressionist gathering of artists was centered in Munich.
The group is known by the name Der Blaue Reiter, meaning The
Blue Rider. The famous names are Wassily Kandinsky, Franz
Marc, August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von
Werefkin, Gabriele Münter, Lyonel Feininger, Albert Bloch .
The Expressionism art style was a wide-ranging international and far
reaching modern art movement that encompassed not just painting but
cinema, theatre, literature and dance.
The term expressionism is used to signify the use of distortion and
exaggeration in the interests of emotional effect. Unlike the Impressionists,
who tried to recreate an impression of the objective world, the expressionism
art style was concerned with the imposition of the artists own personality,
feelings and emotions onto their representation of the world. The
Expressionist artists wanted to capture their emotional response to the world
around them, rather then just recreating what they saw.

The expressionism art style is typified in modern painting by the use of

intense and un-naturalistic colour and the distortion and exaggeration of form
for emotional effect. The beginnings of this can be clearly seen in artists such
as Van Gogh, with his use of pure colour, agitated brush-marks and
distortions of shapes.
The German Expressionists were an important element in Expressionism
history, and in particular the group called Die Brucke (The Bridge).
 Die Brucke(The Bridge)

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Max Pechstein

Fritz Bleyl
Der Blaue Reiter(The Blue Rider)

Wassily Kadinsky Franz Marc