The 5 best German EXPRESSIONIST painters and their WORKS

The expressionism is an artistic movement that started in Germany at the hands of a group of painters who came together to form Die Brücke, The Bridge, in 1905. A group that, influenced by Munch and Ensor, pioneers of the grotesque and the strange, created a movement who wanted to escape conventionalisms and tradition to opt for works with distressing themes and primitive.

In 1911 a new group arises, Der Blaue Reiter, (The Blue Rider), with more personal and subjective artists, focused on more spiritual issues. A group of bohemian and heterodox painters who adopted a pessimistic tone and a taste for ugliness that characterized them and that also passed to the cinema, music and literature. In this lesson from a TEACHER we offer you a selection of the best german expressionist painters to meet the most prominent figures of one of the great avant-garde stylistic movements of the early 20th century.

Index

1. Characteristics of German Expressionism
instagram story viewer
2. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), one of the German expressionist painters
3. Franz Marc (1880-1916)
4. Kathe Köllwitz (1867-1945)
5. Otto Dix (1891-1969)
6. George Grosz (1893-1959)

Among the main characteristics of German expressionism stand out:

• Disenchantment and distrust towards reality and progress sponsored by modernity.
• Idea that people lack freedom and autonomy, reduced only to being mere pieces of the system and being driven by power.
• The artist lets the instinct and the intuition put themselves before reason.
• The subjectivity, the dreamlike, the psychological and the primary they play an important role in the creation of artistic works.
• It is never about idealizing reality, openly showing feelings such as anguish, misery, cruelty, fear, loneliness, and so on.
• Stylistically, the German Expressionist painters opted for angular shapes, do not use the classical perspective and deform the figures based on feelings.
• Other features are the expressive use of color, the coarse and rough pasta, as well as hisoblique lines and overlapping scenes.

Among the most prominent German expressionist painters is Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938). It constitutes one of the great representatives expressionism, being a member of Die Brücke (The Bridge) since 1905 and dissolving it in 1913. A change that led Kirchner to evolve from Impressionism to Expressionism, dealing with topics such as portraits, landscapes and nudes.

Although he was not very successful in exhibiting him, Kirchner took refuge in painting as a form of escape from mental illnesses that assaulted him after he passed through the front lines during the First War World.

Many of his works were destroyed by the Nazis in 1937, committing suicide in 1938. Among his main works stands out Berlin street scene, Self portrait as a soldier Y Five women on the street.

Marc was one of the leading German expressionist painters, forming part of the current Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). Her works are characterized by portray animals and use bright and emotional primary colors.

Thus, Marc gave a meaning to each color. Yellow identified it with joy, while blue represented spirituality and red, violence. A use of color inspired by the painter Robert Delaunay and with which she tried to show the vitality and strength of nature. Thus, Marc refused to represent human beings, considering them unworthy of it.

His respect for animals was reflected in his many portraits of horses and crows, inspired by cave paintings. Among her most representative works are The blue horse;The yellow cow Y The fate of the animals.

The painter Kathe Köllwitz she is also one of the most important German expressionist painters, standing out for a eminently social work, by showing the working classes, the marginalized and the forgotten of society. This painter she studied at the Berlin Academy Women's School and at the Munich School of Art, reaching she will be appointed a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts, being the first woman to occupy a position in that institution.

She convinced pacifist, in her works she showed death, motherhood, social causes, pacifism, the horror of mothers as spoils of war, as well as the vulnerability of the female population in war and in the Nazi regime. Some complaints for which she was persecuted by the Nazi government, deprived of her position as director of the engraving class and was kept in detention, forbidding her to make exhibitions. She passed away in 1945, a few days before the end of World War II.

Among her works, the series of etchings entitled The breeding of weavers (1893-1897), inspired by the play The Weavers by GerhartHauptmann, where the oppression of the proletariat is denounced.

Otto Dix took his first steps with expressionism showing reality from its less pleasant, uglier, crude and satirical side. He was the son of workers, but his great talent as a draftsman led him to be considered one of the great talents of the moment. A very personal artist with great influences from the German Renaissance, in addition to the cubists, futuristic and Dadaists.

His participation in the First World War affected him greatly, making his art more critical of him. A critical spirit that was sharpened with the arrival of the Nazis to power, being dismissed from his position as professor of fine arts. Some of his works were burned by the Nazis, others stolen, being considered by the regime as a degenerate artist. The most representative works of him are War; Card players; Portrait of the journalist Sylvia von Harden.

We finish this review of German Expressionist painters to talk about Georg grosz that he was one of the members of the Dada movement to end in the New Objectivity movement before the rise of the Third Reich. He was also a good cartoonist and cartoonist, engaging in Expressionism before World War I. A conflict that left a huge mark on him, thus showing works full of violence, apocalyptic visions and political criticism.

Among the most representative works of him: Cain or Hitler in Hell, Funeral dedicated to Oscar Panizza, Gray Day.

If you want to read more articles similar to German expressionist painters, we recommend that you enter our category of Story.

1. VVAA (2002), Expressionists, Electa, Madrid
2. Wolf-Dieter Dubler (1997), The Expressionists, Destiny, Barcelona