German Expressionism

By 1905, the year of the Fauves show, there were young artists in other parts of Europe, particularily Germany, who were just as rebelious as those in France. A group in Dresden gave form to this spirit by organizing a society called Die Bruke ("The Bridge"). A few years later another group, called Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider") was formed in Munich. The woek of these groups, and that of kindred artists active in central Europe up to the time of the Nazi takeover of Germany, has come to be known as German Expresionism. Paul Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907, seen now as one of the earliest exponents of the movement, was the first to make use of Post-impressionism in original ways. Thought not affiliated with the Brucke, Modersohn-Becker's art was admired by members of the German avant-gaurde, and she would have been a leader in the movement had she not died of complications related to childbirth at the age of 31. The Greman Expressionists broke with the past in a more radical ways. Expressionist themes were often selected for their personal, social, or religious implicaations, while bright color and distorted forms were exploited for their power to disturb and to express the artist's feelings about life. The most important artist involved in German Expressionism was neither German nor preoccupied with anxiety: Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944). After moving to Munich he became the leader of the Blaue Reiter. At about this same time he also achieved one of the Modern movements major breakthroughs: the first completely abstract painting. To counteract tendancies of viewers to read images into his work, Kandinsky titled his paintings as if they were musical scores (i.e. "Composition VII"). Kandinsky, a Russian Orthodox Christian, had come to believe in the need for a spiritual revival, and his experiments in abstact art were part of that quest.