A Sense of Expressionism (Xiong’s Presentation)

In order to more understand about Expressionism, let look over what impressionism is first.Impressionism can be considered the first distinctly modern movement in painting. Developing in Paris in the 1860s. Impressionism is generally considered to be a spontaneous method of painting in which an artist attempts to capture the impression of light in a scene. The Impressionists broke from the traditional painting methods of their day and applied paint in small touches of pure color rather than mix the paint and apply it in broad strokes using a painting knife or a brush.

After then, the society changed a lot. The new movements, especially the French Revolution changed people’s mind to think what freedom and society should be. Inspired by these ideas and capture the Impressionism expression style, numerous writing and painting arts were created to express their inside emotions.

In that point (19^th century), as more and more significant activities occurred and enlighten in Europe, some artists began to use a typical skill to express their art pieces, which we called them expressionists later days. he Expressionist emphasis on individual perspective has been characterized as a reaction to positivism and other artistic styles such as Naturalism and Impressionism. The skill was used in the modern sense as early as 1850 and it traced to paintings exhibited in 1901 in Paris by artist Julien Auguste Herve.

After then, so many Germany philosophers stated to think and question the religious, one of the famous was Friedrich Nietzsche. In his so famous book” Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, the Zarathustra claimed that “God is dead” and its ours, killed god.

As influenced by such these irregular thoughts and criticizes, many and many artistes joined this movement of expressionism. In 1905, a group of four German artists, led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, formed Die Brücke(the Bridge) in the city of Dresden

In 1911, a like-minded group of young artists formed Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in Munich.

Until 1913, the movement initially and most predominant in painting, poetry and the theatre,Thus, German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. In this movement most precursors of the movement were not German.There have been expressionist writers of prose fiction, as well as non-German speaking expressionist writers.

The movement effect on many artist areas, there were subsequent expressionist works.

1: Dance 2: Sculpture 3: Cinema 4: Literature 5: Music 6: Architecture 7: Visual Arts

The most recognized one were visual and literature. In literature, expressionism is often considered a revolt against realism and naturalism and seeking to achieve a psychological or spiritual reality rather than record external events in logical sequence. For instance, the in prose, the early stories and novels of Alfred Döblinwere influenced by Expressionism andFranz Kafka is sometimes labelled an Expressionist. There are some writers and works of Expressionist :

Franz Kafka(1883–1924): “The Metamorphosis” (1915), The Trial(1925), The Castle (1926)
Alfred Döblin(1857–1957): Berlin Alexanderplatz(1929)
Wyndham Lewis(1882–1957)[
Djuna Barnes(1892–1982): Nightwood(1936)
Malcolm Lowry(1909–57): Under the Volcano(1947)
Ernest Hemingway
Patrick White(1912–90)

In visual art filed, Paris as a reaction to the more passive style of Impressionism. The heart of the expressionism lies the idea that one conveys emotional experience over physical reality.