Expressionist Art
My favourite subjects to draw are musicians. Music itself is dependent on the shape and form of the instrument, which for artistic purposes are beautiful and instantly recognisable. It is equally dependent on the musicians themselves, how they use their bodies to form the pitch and tone. I aim to depict the movement of the sound and the passion of the person.
I can hardly dream to compare with the early German artists I admire such as Conrad Felixmuller but we all have to aim for something.
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The Expressionist Art Movement
Expressionism was an artistic style which grew like a rose out of the soil of the late 19th early 20th century society. Originating in Germany and Austria and following the anti-authority thinking of people such as Freud, Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky, the expressionist movement focused on the expression of inner experience and emotion. It was less concerned with the reality of what a subject looked like and expressed the artist's emotional reaction to it.
Expressionist paintings can often be characterised by distorted forms drawn in bold colours and two dimensions, without perspective. But always sought to depict intense emotion and was always strongly subjective. Often the images were full of angst such as Edvard Munch's The Scream, or the latter paintings of Vincent and Gough such as The Starry Night.
Around the time of World War II the expressionist art movement had migrated to the shores of America. Indeed, it was the artists of this time which established New York as a place of importance in the art world. It has been said that expressionism was a precursor to surrealism and influenced artists such as Dali.
A huge part of the movement in America became abstract expressionism, characterized by dripping paint onto the canvas. One of the most famous of the abstract expressionist painters of this period was Jackson Pollock.
Interestingly the artists pioneering this movement never described themselves as expressionists, it was a label given to them, and as an artistic style is still very much alive today within the work of many contemporary painters.
I myself use this style because I draw musicians. Music itself is an embodiment of the inner emotional experience and with my art I seek to express this subjective image. Expression of emotion through music is something I try to capture in drawings and I can think of no better artistic style with which to achieve this than the expressionist one which provides me with all the tools I need to depict the exquisite passion, soulful blues and poignant heartache expressed by the true musician.
Expressionist paintings can often be characterised by distorted forms drawn in bold colours and two dimensions, without perspective. But always sought to depict intense emotion and was always strongly subjective. Often the images were full of angst such as Edvard Munch's The Scream, or the latter paintings of Vincent and Gough such as The Starry Night.
Around the time of World War II the expressionist art movement had migrated to the shores of America. Indeed, it was the artists of this time which established New York as a place of importance in the art world. It has been said that expressionism was a precursor to surrealism and influenced artists such as Dali.
A huge part of the movement in America became abstract expressionism, characterized by dripping paint onto the canvas. One of the most famous of the abstract expressionist painters of this period was Jackson Pollock.
Interestingly the artists pioneering this movement never described themselves as expressionists, it was a label given to them, and as an artistic style is still very much alive today within the work of many contemporary painters.
I myself use this style because I draw musicians. Music itself is an embodiment of the inner emotional experience and with my art I seek to express this subjective image. Expression of emotion through music is something I try to capture in drawings and I can think of no better artistic style with which to achieve this than the expressionist one which provides me with all the tools I need to depict the exquisite passion, soulful blues and poignant heartache expressed by the true musician.
German Expressionism: The Art of Revolution
The origins of the expressionist art movement are credited to the artists of Germany who worked between the world wars. Many of the soldiers who fought in the trenches of World Was I were artists, or were to become established as artists as the horrors of war sought an outlet form their memories.
These earliest of works showed contempt in equal measure for the butchery of human beings on the front lines and the bourgeois elite who sat at home patting themselves on the back for a job well done.
When the war was lost in 1918 the corrupt monarchy of Wilhelm II was overthrown and hope bloomed in the streets of Germany, and people breathed in the sweet scent of a new beginning with all its intoxicating promises. In this climate activist groups flourished, with calls for democracy and communism and right-wing regimes also filling the streets.
The artists of this time formed groups of their own and called on other artists to back the provisional government; the expressionists formed Arbeitsrat fur Kunst or the Workers Council for Art. They worked closely with the Novembergruppe who formed under the name and influence of the November Revolution which was a series of events culminating in the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II on 9th November 1918 and the establishment of a parliamentary republic. These groups call for all artists, sculptors, painters, architects, writers and composers to unite and build a new society.
Swift action was taken by the right-wingers to oppose them, the same people who would form the core of the Nazi regime, who had prominent socialist leaders arrested and murdered. They took a year planning a coup to capture Berlin's governmental buildings. Ultimately this move failed when 12 million German workers held a general strike which drove the right-wings from power. It was at this time, however, that the National Socialist German Works Party was founded, one of the most active and strong-voiced members of this party was one Adolph Hitler.
During this era of the fascist climb to power the artists worked hard to disparage them and their principles, producing work which expressed the grim future and highlighted the need for change. Though some artists sought to escape the current political climate in their work, producing portraits, landscapes or religious works, all felt the oppression beginning to descend.
When the Nazis did come to power the artists lost any status they had as teachers or painters, were forbidden to exhibit or create, many went into exile as their contemporaries were arrested and killed. Thousands of artworks were removed from public view in the museums and galleries of Germany, then the Nazis turned the power that the artists had once wielded against them when the formed their own exhibit of these same artist's works. This they called the Entartete Kunst: Degenerate Art. Within the exhibition they mocked the works by hanging the badly, at angles and decorating them perversely with Nazi banners and badges.
The artists themselves were, the Nazis proclaimed, madmen, Jews and Communists and morally deficient. They succeeded in creating the end of art in Germany only for as long as they were in power, for after the liberation of the country many of the artists, some of whom who had forged successful careers in other countries, returned and resumed their posts as teachers in the academies and art schools and continues to produce great works of art.
These earliest of works showed contempt in equal measure for the butchery of human beings on the front lines and the bourgeois elite who sat at home patting themselves on the back for a job well done.
When the war was lost in 1918 the corrupt monarchy of Wilhelm II was overthrown and hope bloomed in the streets of Germany, and people breathed in the sweet scent of a new beginning with all its intoxicating promises. In this climate activist groups flourished, with calls for democracy and communism and right-wing regimes also filling the streets.
The artists of this time formed groups of their own and called on other artists to back the provisional government; the expressionists formed Arbeitsrat fur Kunst or the Workers Council for Art. They worked closely with the Novembergruppe who formed under the name and influence of the November Revolution which was a series of events culminating in the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II on 9th November 1918 and the establishment of a parliamentary republic. These groups call for all artists, sculptors, painters, architects, writers and composers to unite and build a new society.
Swift action was taken by the right-wingers to oppose them, the same people who would form the core of the Nazi regime, who had prominent socialist leaders arrested and murdered. They took a year planning a coup to capture Berlin's governmental buildings. Ultimately this move failed when 12 million German workers held a general strike which drove the right-wings from power. It was at this time, however, that the National Socialist German Works Party was founded, one of the most active and strong-voiced members of this party was one Adolph Hitler.
During this era of the fascist climb to power the artists worked hard to disparage them and their principles, producing work which expressed the grim future and highlighted the need for change. Though some artists sought to escape the current political climate in their work, producing portraits, landscapes or religious works, all felt the oppression beginning to descend.
When the Nazis did come to power the artists lost any status they had as teachers or painters, were forbidden to exhibit or create, many went into exile as their contemporaries were arrested and killed. Thousands of artworks were removed from public view in the museums and galleries of Germany, then the Nazis turned the power that the artists had once wielded against them when the formed their own exhibit of these same artist's works. This they called the Entartete Kunst: Degenerate Art. Within the exhibition they mocked the works by hanging the badly, at angles and decorating them perversely with Nazi banners and badges.
The artists themselves were, the Nazis proclaimed, madmen, Jews and Communists and morally deficient. They succeeded in creating the end of art in Germany only for as long as they were in power, for after the liberation of the country many of the artists, some of whom who had forged successful careers in other countries, returned and resumed their posts as teachers in the academies and art schools and continues to produce great works of art.
20th Century German Expressionist Artists: Otto Dix
Famed for his realistic images of war, Otto Dix had plenty of memories to draw from. Believing, as many did, the WWI would be 'the war to end all wars' he volunteered for the German army and eventually found himself fighting at the Battle of the Somme on the western front as a non-commissioned officer of a machine gun unit where he was injured several times, seriously once when he was hit in the neck by shrapnel. He then fought on the eastern front until Russia and Germany negotiated peace whereupon he found himself back on the western front fighting the German spring offensive.
Having financed his way through the Dresden School of Arts by painting portraits, after the war he used his talent to paint war veterans whom he shared a kinship with. His paintings depicted the dark reality of the forgotten many, maimed and starving in 1920s Germany and became increasingly political and left-wing. His paintings was so shockingly graphic that one museum director was forced to resign for exhibiting them. In 1920 he exhibited in German Expressionists in Darmstadt. He produced a portfolio of 50 etchings called 'War' in 1924 and in 1928 and 1932 he painted perhaps his most famous works: the triptychs Metropolis and Trench Warfare.
In order to continue working as an artist after the fascists rose to power he was forced to join the Nazi controlled Imperial Chamber of Fine Arts, painting only landscapes, though he still painted a few paintings in defiance of their regime. They stripped him of his teaching post at the Dresden Academy and used his paintings of WWI such as The Trench and War Cripples in their propaganda exhibition Entartete Karst or Degenerate Artist. Later these paintings were burned.
In 1939 he was arrested and charged with conspiring against Hitler but was later released and the charges dropped.
During WWII he was conscripted into the Volkssturm or German national militia which led to his capture and imprisonment in a POW camp in France. He was released after the war in 1946 and returned to Dresden where he continued to paint on the themes of religion and post-war suffering. He died in 1969.
Works: Seven Deadly Sins
Trench Warfare
Metropolis
Having financed his way through the Dresden School of Arts by painting portraits, after the war he used his talent to paint war veterans whom he shared a kinship with. His paintings depicted the dark reality of the forgotten many, maimed and starving in 1920s Germany and became increasingly political and left-wing. His paintings was so shockingly graphic that one museum director was forced to resign for exhibiting them. In 1920 he exhibited in German Expressionists in Darmstadt. He produced a portfolio of 50 etchings called 'War' in 1924 and in 1928 and 1932 he painted perhaps his most famous works: the triptychs Metropolis and Trench Warfare.
In order to continue working as an artist after the fascists rose to power he was forced to join the Nazi controlled Imperial Chamber of Fine Arts, painting only landscapes, though he still painted a few paintings in defiance of their regime. They stripped him of his teaching post at the Dresden Academy and used his paintings of WWI such as The Trench and War Cripples in their propaganda exhibition Entartete Karst or Degenerate Artist. Later these paintings were burned.
In 1939 he was arrested and charged with conspiring against Hitler but was later released and the charges dropped.
During WWII he was conscripted into the Volkssturm or German national militia which led to his capture and imprisonment in a POW camp in France. He was released after the war in 1946 and returned to Dresden where he continued to paint on the themes of religion and post-war suffering. He died in 1969.
Works: Seven Deadly Sins
Trench Warfare
Metropolis
German Expressionist Painters: George Grosz
As did many of the German artists of the time George Grosz fought in the trenches of WWI, having volunteered for military service. In 1915 he was discharged on medical grounds however he was drafted in the January of 1917 due to the shortage of soldiers, where he did not fight but guarded and transported prisoners of war, but by the May he was given permanent discharge as he was unfit for duty after a suicide attempt forced them to diagnose shell shock.
Having faced his own disillusionment about the nature of war he turned his attention the bourgeoisies of 1920s Germany and painted a series of mocking caricatures of them and those who were in support of war.
He provided illustrations for German left-wing publications through his involvement with the German Dada group, and became a member of the KPD, the German communist party in 1919. He was arrested during the Spartacist uprising which marked the end of the German revolution, but he escaped using fake identification papers. In 1921 he was accused of insulting the army and was fined 300 German marks and had his work Gott Mit uns, God With Us - a satire condemning German Society - destroyed.
After spending five months in Russia meeting with people like Trotsky and Lenin he left the KPD, unwilling to live under any sort of dictator and as such his politics were strongly ant-Nazi.
He was invited by the Art Studies League of New York to teach there in 1933, just at the time when the Nazis came to power. He received word that they had been to his apartment and his studio looking for him and so he stayed in America, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1938. During this time his work become more romantic and to many this signaled a decline.
He continued to teach, forming a private art school in his own home during the 1950s and he worked as an artist in residence. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1954.
He returned to Berlin where he died after a fall down some stairs in 1959.
Works: Suicide 1916
Fit For Active Service 1918
Grey Day 1921
The Face of the Ruling Class 1921
The Eclipse of the Sun 1928
Having faced his own disillusionment about the nature of war he turned his attention the bourgeoisies of 1920s Germany and painted a series of mocking caricatures of them and those who were in support of war.
He provided illustrations for German left-wing publications through his involvement with the German Dada group, and became a member of the KPD, the German communist party in 1919. He was arrested during the Spartacist uprising which marked the end of the German revolution, but he escaped using fake identification papers. In 1921 he was accused of insulting the army and was fined 300 German marks and had his work Gott Mit uns, God With Us - a satire condemning German Society - destroyed.
After spending five months in Russia meeting with people like Trotsky and Lenin he left the KPD, unwilling to live under any sort of dictator and as such his politics were strongly ant-Nazi.
He was invited by the Art Studies League of New York to teach there in 1933, just at the time when the Nazis came to power. He received word that they had been to his apartment and his studio looking for him and so he stayed in America, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1938. During this time his work become more romantic and to many this signaled a decline.
He continued to teach, forming a private art school in his own home during the 1950s and he worked as an artist in residence. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1954.
He returned to Berlin where he died after a fall down some stairs in 1959.
Works: Suicide 1916
Fit For Active Service 1918
Grey Day 1921
The Face of the Ruling Class 1921
The Eclipse of the Sun 1928
Female 20th Century German Expressionist Painter: Kathe Kollwitz
Born in 1867 to a father who was a radical social democrat who became a mason and house builder and educated by her grandfather on matters of religion and socialism Kathe Kollwitz dedicated her life to political activism. From an early age she was confronted by death when her younger brother died, leaving her deeply affected.
Her father's encouragement beginning at the age of 12 saw her progress artistically until she was old enough to go the Women's School of Art in Berlin, at a time when women were not allowed to study like men. At the age of 17 she got engaged to a medical student Karl Kollwitz whom she would not marry until 1891 when he was a qualified doctor. In the years in between she studied at Munich woman's art school, discovering there that she was a more talented draftsman than painter, then she returned to her home and rented a studio where she continued to draw Germany's working class laborers.
Two of her greatest works were The Weavers: an etching cycle inspired by the oppression of Silesian Weavers in Langembielau and their ultimately unsuccessful buy violent revolt in 1842, and The Peasant War: and etching cycle equally inspired by a violent revolution this time in southern Germany during the early years of the reformation when, in 1525, the peasants took arms against the feudal lords of the church who treated them as slaves.
During WWI she lost her one of her sons to the fighting and lost a grandson to WWII. All throughout her life she was a pacifist and produced anti-war art. She provided prints for the left-wing publications of pre-Nazi Germany and during the power struggle which followed the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II sought to ally the workers with the communist Soviets.
When the strongly anti-communist Nazis came to power they banned her from exhibiting and stripped her of her teaching post at the Berlin Academy of Art. Despite all this she stayed in Germany. She left Berlin in 1943, and during the latter days of the war her house was destroyed by an allied bomb, taking with it the majority of her work, all except a small portfolio she took with her.
In 1932 she finally finished her monument to the son she had lost in 1914: sculptures called The Grieving Parents. She was the first woman to be elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts. She died in 1945 in Moritzburg.
Works: The Weavers
Peasant War
Death and Woman
Death Woman and Child
Her father's encouragement beginning at the age of 12 saw her progress artistically until she was old enough to go the Women's School of Art in Berlin, at a time when women were not allowed to study like men. At the age of 17 she got engaged to a medical student Karl Kollwitz whom she would not marry until 1891 when he was a qualified doctor. In the years in between she studied at Munich woman's art school, discovering there that she was a more talented draftsman than painter, then she returned to her home and rented a studio where she continued to draw Germany's working class laborers.
Two of her greatest works were The Weavers: an etching cycle inspired by the oppression of Silesian Weavers in Langembielau and their ultimately unsuccessful buy violent revolt in 1842, and The Peasant War: and etching cycle equally inspired by a violent revolution this time in southern Germany during the early years of the reformation when, in 1525, the peasants took arms against the feudal lords of the church who treated them as slaves.
During WWI she lost her one of her sons to the fighting and lost a grandson to WWII. All throughout her life she was a pacifist and produced anti-war art. She provided prints for the left-wing publications of pre-Nazi Germany and during the power struggle which followed the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II sought to ally the workers with the communist Soviets.
When the strongly anti-communist Nazis came to power they banned her from exhibiting and stripped her of her teaching post at the Berlin Academy of Art. Despite all this she stayed in Germany. She left Berlin in 1943, and during the latter days of the war her house was destroyed by an allied bomb, taking with it the majority of her work, all except a small portfolio she took with her.
In 1932 she finally finished her monument to the son she had lost in 1914: sculptures called The Grieving Parents. She was the first woman to be elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts. She died in 1945 in Moritzburg.
Works: The Weavers
Peasant War
Death and Woman
Death Woman and Child
Felix Nussbaum: Artist and German Jew
Felix Nussbaum had a great future ahead of him as an artist and he won a scholarship to study art in Rome with a small group of other artists. However, when there, they had a visit from Paul Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda and public enlightenment, who informed them that they were to paint only scenes of Nazi propaganda. Realizing then that a Jew had no place in this Nazi doctrine he left Rome and subsequently had his scholarship removed.
During this time his parents had moved out of Germany to Switzerland and they traveled to Italy to see him for what would be the last time. Though he pleaded for them not to they missed Germany and decided to go back in 1935. By 1939 they fled the country again this time to Amsterdam to be with his brother Justus.
Felix himself went on the run first to Paris, then Belgium ending up in Brussels in 1937. Then in 1940 when the Nazis attacked he was branded by the authorities and 'enemy alien' and sent to a French detainment camp. A few weeks later, after the appalling treatment of the camp, he applied to return to Germany. At a checkpoint in Bordeaux he escaped by boarding a train to Brussels.
There he lived in hiding. He had no official papers so relied on friends who gave him shelter and art supplies to continue his work. In 1944 his parents and brother and his family were all sent to Auschwitz. He was arrested just before Brussels was liberated and also sent to Auschwitz, where he, and indeed all his family were murdered. He had survived for ten years on the run and died one month before the liberation of Brussels.
His art is anti-war, as with so many of the artists of this time, but deeply personal. One of his most famous works is Self Portrait with a Jewish Pass. It shows him with the star all Jews were forced to wear showing a pass to a Nazi guard. The guard is not in the picture, instead Felix looks out of the painting at you, and is showing you the pass as he waits for your judgement as if you are the guard. In this way he draws the viewer into his world: giving a small but powerful insight into life as a German Jew.
Works: Self Portrait With a Jewish Pass
The Camp Synagogue at St Cyprian 1941
The Pearls (mourners)
Masquerade
The Wandering Jew
During this time his parents had moved out of Germany to Switzerland and they traveled to Italy to see him for what would be the last time. Though he pleaded for them not to they missed Germany and decided to go back in 1935. By 1939 they fled the country again this time to Amsterdam to be with his brother Justus.
Felix himself went on the run first to Paris, then Belgium ending up in Brussels in 1937. Then in 1940 when the Nazis attacked he was branded by the authorities and 'enemy alien' and sent to a French detainment camp. A few weeks later, after the appalling treatment of the camp, he applied to return to Germany. At a checkpoint in Bordeaux he escaped by boarding a train to Brussels.
There he lived in hiding. He had no official papers so relied on friends who gave him shelter and art supplies to continue his work. In 1944 his parents and brother and his family were all sent to Auschwitz. He was arrested just before Brussels was liberated and also sent to Auschwitz, where he, and indeed all his family were murdered. He had survived for ten years on the run and died one month before the liberation of Brussels.
His art is anti-war, as with so many of the artists of this time, but deeply personal. One of his most famous works is Self Portrait with a Jewish Pass. It shows him with the star all Jews were forced to wear showing a pass to a Nazi guard. The guard is not in the picture, instead Felix looks out of the painting at you, and is showing you the pass as he waits for your judgement as if you are the guard. In this way he draws the viewer into his world: giving a small but powerful insight into life as a German Jew.
Works: Self Portrait With a Jewish Pass
The Camp Synagogue at St Cyprian 1941
The Pearls (mourners)
Masquerade
The Wandering Jew
20th Century German Expressionist Artists: Max Pechstein
Max Pechstein was one of the artists who formed Die Bruche, The Bridge: a group of people who sought to inspire the masses to change their lives and one of the only members of the group to have had formal artistic training. However he was kicked when, in 1912, he held an exhibit of his work, breaking one of the rules that the group would only show their work together.
Then in 1916 he enlisted and fought in the trenches of WWI, leading to his creation of a series of lithographs called 'The Horror of War'.
1918 saw him co-found the Novembergruppe. Taking its name from the November Revolution which had culminated in the corrupt monarchy being overthrown, the Novembergruppe was a group of expressionists who shared socialist values. They campaigned for greater freedom and control of the arts.
However, in 1933, when the Nazis came to power they vilified him, removing 326 of his paintings from museums and removing him from his post as a professor at the Berlin Academy. The infamous Entartete Kunst, Degenerate Art exhibition where the Nazis mocked anti-war art and turned its power to speak to the people into the power to silence them featured 16 of his works. During this time he sought refuge in Pomerania.
He was reinstated by the Berlin Academy in 1945 and subsequently won many titles and awards for his work. He died in west Berlin in 1955.
Works: Kneeling Man at the Tideway of Dangast
Circus
Self Portrait With Death
House on the Beach
Then in 1916 he enlisted and fought in the trenches of WWI, leading to his creation of a series of lithographs called 'The Horror of War'.
1918 saw him co-found the Novembergruppe. Taking its name from the November Revolution which had culminated in the corrupt monarchy being overthrown, the Novembergruppe was a group of expressionists who shared socialist values. They campaigned for greater freedom and control of the arts.
However, in 1933, when the Nazis came to power they vilified him, removing 326 of his paintings from museums and removing him from his post as a professor at the Berlin Academy. The infamous Entartete Kunst, Degenerate Art exhibition where the Nazis mocked anti-war art and turned its power to speak to the people into the power to silence them featured 16 of his works. During this time he sought refuge in Pomerania.
He was reinstated by the Berlin Academy in 1945 and subsequently won many titles and awards for his work. He died in west Berlin in 1955.
Works: Kneeling Man at the Tideway of Dangast
Circus
Self Portrait With Death
House on the Beach
Cello Lament
Piano Blues
Violin Ballad
