Buying Paintings: Expressionism
When speaking on buying paintings of the Expressionist movement, it is invariably a great idea to review what elements make Expressionism unique, and to gain an understanding of some of the artists representative of this specific artistic movement. The arranged aim of Expressionist artwork is not reproduce a subject accurately, but to instead portray the inner state of the artist, with a tendency to distort reality for an emotional effect. The movement is closely connected with its’ beginnings in Germany, and has a few unique but overlapping schools of thought within.
The term Expressionism was first used to describe the movement in the magazine manufactured in 1911 called “Der Sturm”, and was usually linked to paintings and graphic work that challenged academic traditions at the time. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche later helped to define the area of modern expressionism better by clarifying the movement’s links to ancient art prior to any more up to date interpretation had, and applied his own unique philosophy to the movement. He has been quoted stating that disordered and ordered elements are present in all works of art, but that the basic traits of Expressionism lay in the mainly disordered aspects.
The Expressionist perspective was usually conveyed through the use of bold colors, distorted forms, and a lack of perspective. In the main, a piece of expressionistic art is one that is expressive of intense emotion, and much of this sort of artwork occurs during times of social upheaval. Though it may be argued that an artist is expressive naturally, and that all artwork is truly expressionist, there are many who think about the movement particularly communicative of emotion. Later, artists like Kandinsky changed 20th century Expressionist work through the formation of Abstract Expressionism.
The art historian Antonín was elemental in coining the term as the opposite to the Impressionist movement as well, and though Expressionism seems well called an artistic movement, there have never been a grouping of artists that called themselves Expressionists. The movement was primarily German and Austrian, and nearly all of the various sets of thought were based around Germany at the time. Another artistic movement that heavily influenced Expressionism was Fauvism. This kind of artwork is characterized by primitive, less naturalistic forms, and includes the works of famed painters Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse.
With this influence firmly in place, Expressionism grew into striking compositions that focused on representing emotional reactions through powerful use of color and dynamic approaches with subject matter, and appeared to counter the qualities centered on by the French Impressionism of the time. Where French Impressionism was to search out rendering the visual aspect of objects, Expressionism became an opposing movement searching to capture emotions and subjective interpretation, and it was unimportant to reproduce a visually pleasing interpretation of the matter that the painting represented.
Expressionism has crossed over into many differing fields of artistic vision, with sculpture and filmmaking being primary examples today, and have influenced many people throughout the course of its’ existence as a movement in art. These visions have combined in time to create the comprehensive idea of what Expressionism is now, and many have discovered this type of art very appealing and eye-catching. Throughout this century, much Expressionistic artwork has come to be representative of what art can come to be, and many have been influenced by this very emotional artwork.
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