German Expressionist Woodcuts (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)

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Like Marc, Wassily Kandinsky believed in art’s ability to express the metaphysical realm, and saw color as a key tool in this pursuit. “Color is a power which directly influences the soul,” he wrote in his seminal treatise On the Spiritual in Art (1911), also penned the same year Der Blaue Reiter was established. The text outlines a new approach to artmaking based on the fusion of abstract forms and color symbolism—both, he asserted, had the “power of inner suggestion.” For instance, he thought blue stimulated spirituality, while yellow had the power to disturb. In Austria, Klimt led the way for artists including Oskar Kokoschkaand Egon Schiele, while in France, Rouault, Soutine, Chagall emerged as leaders of the style. The movement also influenced other media, most notably sculpture and architecture. Much like the Germans, Expressionists in other countries were inevitably affected by the war, with many volunteering for active duty or forced into exile. The Legacy of Expressionism Don Kornits (2 June 1999). "Alex Proyas – Director, Dark City". eFilmCritic . Retrieved 6 July 2007. films, which were influenced by German Expressionist cinema, the effect of horror was usually created by means of a macabre atmosphere and theme; The Student of Prague (1913), an early German film dealing with a dual personality, and The Golem (1915), based on the medieval Jewish legend of a clay… Read More

Self-Portrait with Hand on Forehead, etching by Käthe Kollwitz, 1910; in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (more) The explosion of sales of cheap woodcuts in the middle of the century led to a fall in standards, and many popular prints were very crude. The development of hatching followed on rather later than engraving. Michael Wolgemut was significant in making German woodcuts more sophisticated from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwich was the first to use cross-hatching (far harder to do than engraving or etching). Both of these produced mainly book-illustrations, as did various Italian artists who were also raising standards there at the same period. At the end of the century Albrecht Dürer brought the Western woodcut to a level that, arguably, has never been surpassed, and greatly increased the status of the "single-leaf" woodcut (i.e. an image sold separately). Avila, Theresa (4 May 2014). "El Taller de Gráfica Popular and the Chronicles of Mexican History and Nationalism". Third Text. 28 (3): 311–321. doi: 10.1080/09528822.2014.930578. ISSN 0952-8822. S2CID 145728815.Marc’s ebullient Yellow Cow is one of the artist’s many canvases portraying animals, which he believed represented spiritual and emotional renewal. This piece holds particular significance as it was made in the same year that Marc and Kandinsky formed Der Blaue Reiter, or “The Blue Rider.” The term references Marc’s fascination with animals, as well as a central theme of Kandinsky’s work: the horse and rider. This theme symbolizes the connection between humans and nature and, according to MoMA, the journey beyond realistic representation. Some of the major filmmakers of this time were F. W. Murnau, Erich Pommer, and Fritz Lang. The movement ended after the currency stabilized, making it cheaper to buy movies abroad. The UFA financially collapsed and German studios began to deal with Italian studios which led to their influence in style of horror and films noirs. The American influence on the film industry would also lead some film makers to continue their career in the US. The UFA's last film was Der blaue Engel (1930), considered a masterpiece of German Expressionism. Rouault holds a special place in the history of modern art. He was contemporary of the Cubists, Fauvists and Expressionists without ever joining their ranks. He developed a highly individualistic style but because he was a passionate Catholic, and often depicted religious themes, he was never fully accepted as a modernist artist. Clement Greenberg had dismissed him by saying in 1945: "That Rouault, pictorial exponent of the pornographic, sadomasochistic, 'avant-garde' Catholicism of Léon Bloy, should be hailed as the one profoundly religious painter of our time is one of the embarrassments of modernist art". He was mistrusted both by modernists, who found him too conventional, and by religious writers who found his religious sensibilities not traditional enough. The German Expressionist movement was initially confined to Germany due to the country's isolation during World War I. In 1916, the government banned foreign films, creating a sharp increase in the demand for domestic film production, from 24 films in 1914 to 130 films in 1918. With inflation also on the rise, Germans were attending films more freely because they knew that their money's value was constantly diminishing. [3] Eventually, these German Expressionism characteristics would go on to set the scene for the development of mid-century Abstraction.

Numerous artists and creatives contributed to the success of German Expressionism. These Expressionist artists were influenced by the works and stylistic elements of Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Henri Matisse, and Ernst Barlach, as well as by the Fauvism and Post-Impressionism movement. The poster of the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920); Atelier Ledl Bernhard, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Another prominent figure who helped create the Der Blaue Reiter group was painter and art theorist Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian-born artist. While Kandinsky graduated from art school and is generally thought of as the front runner of abstract art, he ended up studying law and economics at university. It was only at the age of 30 years old that he began painting again. He returned to Germany in 1920 and taught at the Bauhaus school of art from 1922 until 1933 when the Nazis closed it down. After his time in Germany, Kandinsky moved to France and eventually passed away at the age of 77. Like all women artists of her era, Gabriele Münter struggled for recognition during her lifetime, and saw her contributions to German Expressionism overshadowed by her male counterparts. “In the eyes of many, I was only an unnecessary side-dish to Kandinsky,” she once wrote. “It is all too easily forgotten that a woman can be a creative artist with a real, original talent of her own.” (This past year, at Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Münter’s work was explored in her first comprehensive retrospective in decades.) Chiaroscuro woodcuts [ edit ] Chiaroscuro woodcut depicting Playing cupids by anonymous 16th-century Italian artista b c Roger Manvell. Henrik Galeen – Films as writer:, Other films. Film Reference . Retrieved 23 April 2009. A revival of the art of the woodcut began in Japan in the late 1920s as part of the modern art movement. Onchi Kōshirō and Hiratsuka Un’ichi were early exponents who, though working in different styles, did most for the renaissance of this national art, which thrived once again after World War II. Among the notable woodcut artists of the postwar period are Munakata Shikō and Saitō Kiyoshi. International audiences and appreciation for German cinema began to grow as anti-German sentiment decreased following the end of World War I. By the time its 1916 ban on imports on foreign film was lifted, Germany had become a part of the international film industry. [3] White-line woodcut [ edit ] Using a handheld gouge to cut a "white-line" woodcut design into Japanese plywood. The design has been sketched in chalk on a painted face of the plywood. An Introduction to German Expressionist Films". artnet News. 26 December 2013 . Retrieved 20 January 2017.

At its core, Expressionism was concerned with emotion and the individual experience in opposition to accurate, literal, realistic representation. Confronted with a landscape or a portrait, Expressionist artists sought to depict their experience of and response to the subject more-so than the subject itself, holding a mirror to the soul rather than the source of the illustration. Their art came from within, and to express this more abstract, visualised approach they naturally turned to more abstract forms of expression. Strong elements of monumentalism and Modernism appear throughout the canon of German Expressionism. An excellent example of this is Metropolis, as evidenced by the enormous power plant and glimpses of the massive yet pristine "upper" city.Bartrum, Giulia; German Renaissance Prints, 1490–1550; British Museum Press, 1995, ISBN 0-7141-2604-7