Expressionism (from Latin expressio 'expression') is a style in art. Its beginnings and precursors can be found in the late 19th century. Like Impressionism, Symbolism and Fauvism, Expressionism is a movement against the tendencies of Naturalism. In Expressionism, the expressive level predominates over the aesthetic, appellative and objective level. The artist wants to present his experience to the viewer.
Expressionism is a style of fine art that emerged as an artistic movement in the early 20th century in the German-speaking world, which emerged for the first time in painting and graphic art through this explicit naming. As with Fauvism in France, Expressionism opposed the artistic forms of Impressionism.
1905-1945
Expressionism
In Expressionist paintings, a free use of colour and form is evident in the frequent use of unmixed colours and, in German-speaking countries, the use of woodcut-like forms. Further characteristics are a reduction of motifs to striking formal elements of the pictorial objects and a dissolution of traditional perspective.
The artists of this epoch were not concerned with the realistic reproduction of impressions and beautiful forms; in contrast to the Impressionist painters, the Expressionists expressed their subjective emotions. They passed on directly and spontaneously a motif interpreted "through-feelings".
Very soon after the First World War and under its influence on the artists, Expressionism was partly overlaid and partly replaced by new styles (e.g. Constructivism, New Objectivity, Art Informel, in postmodernism by the Neue Wilde and Photorealism) and partly questioned by Dadaism.
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