What is Expressionism?
In art, Expressionism names a modern movement that deliberately distorts forms and color to express subjective emotion rather than to describe the visible world accurately—a shift from depiction to intensity. For a crisp reference definition and a useful set of traits, see the glossary overview at the Tate and related entries on Expressionism. The label coalesced around 1910 as critics and artists noticed common strategies across painting, prints, and design, a point underscored in accessible introductions at Smarthistory.
Although centered in Germany and Austria c. 1905–1930, Expressionist energies rippled outward—from studio easels to magazines, graphic design, theater, and film—creating a broad visual language. You will meet the two major German groups below, but remember the umbrella includes varied media and tones: raw figuration and spiritual abstraction, urban alienation and pastoral retreat. For quick recall, keep the phrase “Expressionist art characteristics” in view: dissonant color, jagged contours, compressed space, and psychological punch.
Snapshot: Expressionist Art Characteristics
- Dissonant / non‑natural color to amplify mood; color as psychological signal rather than optical record (Tate).
- Distortion and jagged line—figures and streets tilted, stretched, or simplified to convey tension.
- Compressed or tilted space; unstable horizons that feel urgent and off‑balance.
- Psychological intensity: urban alienation, spiritual longing, erotic charge, or anti‑war grief.
- Interest in so‑called “primitive” forms and masks, often through colonial-era museum displays—debated and fraught (Smarthistory hub).
- Woodcut revival and bold printmaking for speed, reproducibility, and social reach (NGA overview; NGA teaching packet PDF).
- Urban subjects (cafés, boulevards, streetwalkers) counterbalanced by nature retreats and animal symbolism.
- Poles of practice: spiritual abstraction (Kandinsky) and raw figuration (Kirchner, Schiele).
Origins & Context
Expressionism grew from late‑nineteenth‑century currents that privileged inner states—especially Symbolism’s quest to visualize the unseen. Industrial modernity, rapid urbanization, and new media (photography, illustrated press) sharpened the sense that description alone could not capture modern life’s tempo. Artists pushed color and contour toward emotional argument.
Debates around Primitivism and the appropriation of African sculpture and masks shaped German Expressionism’s formal experiments and ethics. Many artists encountered African works through ethnographic displays and reproduced images; while those forms catalyzed breakthroughs in simplification and power, the colonial framing and reductive myths demand scrutiny today (see Smarthistory’s materials on the reception of African art in the West).
World War I ruptured networks and lives; by the early 1920s, a cooler, observational mode—Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity)—emerged in Germany as a counter to Expressionist subjectivity (overview at the National Galleries: New Objectivity). If Expressionism chased the inner storm, De Stijl pursued balance through grids and primary color—a radically different answer to modernity.
Two Paths: Die Brücke vs Der Blaue Reiter
Die Brücke (Dresden → Berlin, 1905–1913)
Mini‑timeline & members
Founded in Dresden in 1905 by architecture students Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt‑Rottluff, and Fritz Bleyl, Die Brücke later drew in Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, and Otto Mueller. The group moved to Berlin by 1911 and dissolved in 1913. Their name—“The Bridge”—signaled a leap from an exhausted academic past toward a raw modernity (see concise overviews in museum glossaries such as Tate’s Expressionism family tree).
Style markers
- Raw figuration with dissonant color and jagged, hand‑cut contours.
- City anxiety: cafés, cabarets, and street scenes where flirtation and commerce blur.
- Woodcut and rough-hewn prints that broadcast ideas fast to a wider public (NGA teaching packet above).
- Nudes in studio or nature retreats—back‑and‑forth between urban intensity and pastoral release.
Case note
Kirchner’s Street Scenes series (1913–15) compresses sidewalks into diagonals and sets fashion against menace—prelude to our deep‑dive on Street, Berlin below (see MoMA’s object page and audio resources).
Der Blaue Reiter (Munich, 1911–1914)
Mini‑timeline & members
In Munich, painters Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, and Gabriele Münter gathered allies (including August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, and Paul Klee). Their 1912 publication, the Der Blaue Reiter Almanac, mixed essays on “primitive” masks, children’s art, folk culture, and performance—an open notebook for a new, spiritually charged modern art. For readable summaries of the group’s ideas and the Almanac’s breadth, see Smarthistory and a contextual lecture via the Guggenheim’s archive (Emergence of Der Blaue Reiter).
Ideas & look
- Color as spiritual force; abstraction as a language for inner experience (Kandinsky).
- Animals as emblems of purity and feeling (Marc).
- Synesthesia across media—music, color, movement.
In Blue Horse I (1911), Marc condenses the creature into curving volumes—blue as inward, even spiritual tonality—set against complementary fields of red, yellow, and green. Anatomical detail gives way to a felt presence; the horse reads less as specimen than as concentrated mood. Diagonal slopes and color contrasts keep the eye moving, a quiet counterpart to the city’s clamor.
A few years later, the Bauhaus school would draw in artists with expressionist leanings (think Itten’s color mysticism, Feininger’s crystalline forms) before redirecting them toward workshop rigor and functional design.
Media & Methods: Painting, Prints, and Film
Painting carried Expressionism’s headline gestures—acid palettes, tilted horizons—but printmaking let ideas travel. Woodcut, lithograph, and etching flourished because they were direct, fast, and reproducible. A gouged woodblock could cut emphatic contours; a lithographic crayon could smear a mood. Most importantly, prints carried images beyond elite salons into portfolios, magazines, and public walls. For classroom‑ready context and excellent technique summaries, use the National Gallery of Art’s resources on German Expressionist prints and the NGA teaching packet (PDF).
Expressionist cinema translated the jagged psyche into sets and shadows. In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), angular architecture, painted shadows, and warped perspectives create a visual world where anxiety is structural. Film historians often treat Caligari as a milestone of Expressionist cinema, a medium‑wide echo of the movement’s stagecraft and graphic design (see the general overview on the film’s page for visual hallmarks and production context).
Key Work Analysis: Kirchner, Street, Berlin (1913)
Formal analysis. Diagonal vectors charge the sidewalk; the ground tilts forward as if the crowd might spill into our space. Acidic pinks and violets clash with black hats and deep green shadows. Two fashionably dressed women stride toward us, faces stylized into masks; behind them, men glance and drift, forming a pressurized backdrop. Edges slice like woodcuts, even in paint.
Iconography & meaning. MoMA’s curators emphasize that the central women represent sex workers; for Kirchner, the streetwalker embodied Berlin itself—glamour intertwined with danger, curiosity with isolation, desire with transaction. In that paradox, the city becomes a stage where bodies and looks circulate as commodities (see MoMA audio and the exhibition dossier Kirchner and the Berlin Street).
Object data. Street, Berlin entered MoMA’s collection in 1939 (accession 274.1939); dimensions 47 1/2 × 35 7/8 in. (120.6 × 91.1 cm). For extended label text and related works in the series, consult MoMA’s object record and audio suite (record; audio selection).
German Expressionism Timeline (for students)
- 1905 — Die Brücke founded in Dresden (Kirchner, Heckel, Schmidt‑Rottluff, Bleyl); woodcut revival begins to define the group.
- 1911 — Der Blaue Reiter coalesces in Munich (Kandinsky, Marc, Münter; associates Macke, Jawlensky, Klee); Almanac published in 1912.
- 1913 — Brücke disbands; Kirchner’s Berlin Street Scenes crystallize the city’s push‑pull of allure and anxiety.
- 1914–1918 — World War I scatters networks; Egon Schiele dies in 1918 amid the influenza pandemic.
- 1919–1923 — Käthe Kollwitz intensifies socially engaged print cycles; postwar realism stiffens into Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity).
- c. 1933 — Nazi campaigns against so‑called “degenerate art” target Expressionists; many works are deaccessioned, destroyed, or forced into exile.
Expressionism vs Fauvism (and vs De Stijl / Constructivism)
Fauvism (Matisse, Derain) and Expressionism both use bold, non‑natural color—but to different ends. Fauvists typically pursue clarity, light, and a buoyant hedonism; German Expressionists often torque color toward angst, spiritual intensity, or urban friction. Where Fauvism can feel sun‑lit, Expressionism often feels electrically nocturnal.
On the geometric side of modernism, De Stijl and Constructivism distill form into systems—grids, materials, and production logics—where emotion is sublimated to structure. Expressionism remains unapologetically subjective. Where Expressionists sought an inner state, Suprematism—think Malevich’s Black Square—pushed toward non‑objective purity.
Legacies: From Kollwitz to Abstract Expressionism and Neo‑Expressionism
Käthe Kollwitz exemplifies social conscience in print. Her etched and lithographed cycles turn private grief and public injustice into universal forms. Recent museum focus, including a dedicated exhibition at MoMA (2024–25), underscores how her images still speak to audiences confronting war and precarity.
Post‑war, expressive intensity moves to New York as Abstract Expressionism shifts scale and technique—drips, fields, and gestural sweeps (see the Met’s Heilbrunn essay on Abstract Expressionism). Later, the 1980s witness a figurative return in Neo‑Expressionism, reasserting brute color and body‑scaled paint while digesting the intervening lessons of minimal and conceptual art (see accessible glossaries at Tate and National Galleries).
Where to See Expressionism Today
In New York, visit MoMA’s collection galleries for Kirchner’s Street, Berlin (object record and interpretive audio linked above). For prints and teaching sets, the National Gallery of Art maintains excellent holdings and classroom resources on German Expressionist prints. In Vienna, the Leopold Museum houses the world’s most comprehensive Egon Schiele collection—see entry points via the museum’s Schiele collection pages and collection highlights.
Further Reading (curated, student‑friendly)
- Tate: Expressionism
- Smarthistory: Expressionism, an introduction and Der Blaue Reiter
- NGA: German Expressionist Prints (+ PDF guide)
- University of Glasgow (Hunterian): exhibition paper on German Expressionism
- Leicester’s German Expressionist Collection (research PDF)
- University of Maryland LibGuide: German Expressionism in special collections
Study tip
When comparing movements, list materials (oil, woodcut, film), methods (distortion, grid), and motives (emotion, system, propaganda). It clarifies similarities without flattening differences.
Key terms at a glance
Woodcut = image carved from a wood block (raised areas print). Lithograph = image drawn on stone/plate and printed via oil‑and‑water repulsion. Neue Sachlichkeit = “New Objectivity,” post‑WWI realism in Germany.
FAQs
What are the defining characteristics of Expressionism?
Expressionism uses dissonant color, distorted form, and tilted space to convey inner feeling over outward appearance. Subjects range from city streets to spiritual visions, often rendered with jagged contours and compressed depth. The movement includes both raw figuration and spiritual abstraction; see foundational overviews at Tate and Smarthistory.
How is German Expressionism different from Fauvism?
Both embrace bold color, but Fauvists (Matisse, Derain) lean toward pleasure, light, and decorative balance, while German Expressionists torque color and line toward anxiety, moral urgency, or spiritual intensity—especially in urban subjects and socially charged prints.
What is the difference between Expressionism and Abstract Expressionism?
Expressionism (c. 1905–1930, largely Germany/Austria) keeps recognizable subjects even when distorted, while Abstract Expressionism (1940s–50s, U.S.) scales up into non‑objective fields and gesture. See the Met’s Heilbrunn essay on Abstract Expressionism for the postwar shift.
Who were Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter?
Two German groups under the Expressionism umbrella: Die Brücke (Dresden → Berlin, 1905–13) favored raw figuration, woodcuts, and city energy; Der Blaue Reiter (Munich, 1911–14) pursued spiritual abstraction, animal symbolism, and cross‑media experiments (see the Almanac context).
Why did Expressionist artists use woodcut and etching so often?
Prints are fast, portable, and reproducible. Woodcut’s gouged lines match Expressionism’s urgency; etching and lithography allow moody tonal effects. Prints circulate ideas to broad publics via portfolios and journals—well illustrated in the NGA’s resources.
What is Street, Berlin about?
Kirchner’s painting stages two sex workers moving through a press of men; for the artist, the prostitute symbolized modern Berlin—glamour and alienation intertwined, intimacy and isolation colliding in a commodity culture. See MoMA’s object page and audio.
What are classic Expressionist films?
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is the touchstone: oblique sets, painted shadows, stylized acting. Its visual language echoes Expressionist painting and set design, turning psychological unease into scenery. (Background on the film’s look at the film page.)
What came after Expressionism in Germany?
After WWI, Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) pivoted toward cool observation and social critique—an antidote to Expressionist subjectivity (see National Galleries for a glossary entry).
Explore more
If bold color and decisive shapes speak to you, browse our Abstract & Geometric Wall Art collection for contemporary pieces inspired by early modern experiments.