Expressionist Artists -- The Art World

Author: (German) Dube/Zhang Yanmeng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: "As for me, I know I have no program, only nameless yearnings, yearnings to grasp what I see and feel, yearnings to find a pure way of expression." German Expressionist artist and co-initiator of the "Bridge Group" movement in Dresden, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, expressed the essence of this revolutionary art movement. This movement overturned the stifling German academicism under Emperor Wilhelm and sparked a peak of extraordinary creative activity between 1900 and 1914. A senior curator at the Bayreuth National Painting Collection, drawing heavily on the vivid and thought-provoking language of the artists themselves, narrates a story that has made an extremely crucial and significant contribution to the history of 20th-century art. "In summary, among the published works on 20th-century German art, this book is the most brilliant and concise." — Books and Bookmen In fact, the planning of this book is both cool-headed and ingenious. — The Times Literary Supplement
Before the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, the territory of Germany was divided into many independent states. Under this political condition, closed schools of artistic thought and practice developed within each state and maintained a trend of continuous expansion within their political-geographical regions for a period of time. Although a nationwide artistic form or movement failed to emerge, there were numerous overlaps and similarities in the artistic trends of the various states, which rarely communicated with each other. Compared to France, this characteristic became even more pronounced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In France, all the forces that contributed to artistic development were concentrated in the capital, Paris, allowing a new trend to develop in a logical and persuasive manner.