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

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In 1933 expelled by Nazis from the Prussian Academy of Arts; eventually prohibited from painting and exhibiting. Nazis confiscated 608 works from public collections. Berlin studio and many works destroyed during World War II.

Many critics see a direct tie between cinema and architecture of the time, stating that the sets and scene artwork of Expressionist films often reveal buildings of sharp angles, great heights, and crowded environments, such as the frequently shown Tower of Babel in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. [14] Their artistic style focused on creating works that were more simplified and abstract, with figures being depicted from a flattened perspective so as not to be immediately recognizable. The distortion of forms became overwhelming within their artworks as they were depicted through a vibrant and juxtaposed lens.Landau and Parshall, The Renaissance Print, pp. 179–202; 273–81 & passim; Yale, 1996, ISBN 0-300-06883-2 German Expressionism art became so much more than simply creating art that told a story, as works incorporated political, social, and cultural aspects. The relationship between art and society was explored, with works being understood as vessels of change that depicted the transitional nature of German culture in the midst of chaos. In its entirety, German Expressionism was indeed fleeting, and its extreme anti-realism began to dwindle after a few years as artists and writers aged.

Kracauer, Siegfried. "Caligari" in From Caligari to Hitler. Princeton: Princeton University Press, [1947] 2004. 61–76. Hung, Chang-Tai (1997). "Two images of Socialism: Woodcuts in Chinese Communist Politics". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 39 (1): 34–60. JSTOR 179238. Chiaroscuro woodcuts [ edit ] Chiaroscuro woodcut depicting Playing cupids by anonymous 16th-century Italian artist Deffke Billboard (2016) by Jay Gard, Signale der Moderne, Bauhaus Dessau; Jay Gard, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Initially sympathetic to National Socialism. Nazis nevertheless confiscated 1,052 works, more than from any other artist. Prohibited by Nazis from painting in 1941; worked secretly in watercolor. His studio in Berlin, with archive of his prints, was destroyed by bombs in 1944.From the beginning, printmaking fundamental to simplifying and abstracting his style. Made 663 prints, of which nearly 450 were woodcuts. Almost all date between 1905 and 1927. Until 1912 printed most by hand in small editions; thereafter used professional printers, sometimes under commission from publishers, including Pan-Presse, J. B. Neumann, and Kurt Wolff. In the United States, after the turn of the 20th century, most of the prominent painters became fairly active printmakers: George Wesley Bellows, in lithography; John Sloan and Reginald Marsh, in etching; Milton Avery, in drypoint and a large number of monoprints; and Stuart Davis, in colour lithography. Among these painter-printmakers, two artists are particularly notable: Edward Hopper, whose few etchings are very personal and of unusually high quality; and Ben Shahn, an extremely prolific printmaker, who left an impressive graphic oeuvre in practically every medium. Of the subsequent generation of established painter-printmakers, only a few were creatively involved in the process, while the rest let the commercial printer take over. German Expressionist painters rejected the naturalistic depiction of objective reality, often portraying distorted figures, buildings, and landscapes in a disorienting manner that disregarded the conventions of perspective and proportion. This approach, combined with jagged, stylized shapes and harsh, unnatural colors, were used to convey subjective emotions. At first, German Expression was only considered an art movement, but it encompassed poets, novelists and playwrights in addition to artists. In 1905, a small group of artists broke away and begun to produce vivid paintings that made use of gestural brushstrokes, bright and juxtaposing colors and extremely distorted figures.

Michaela Rethmeier: Die Funktion und Bedeutung Fritz Hipplers für das Filmschaffen im "Dritten Reich". p. 67 (dissertation, University of Münster, 2006)All of Rouault's Pierrots have this same elongated face and straight nose. The figure here seems quite peaceful with a slight smile and the eyes remain closed. If Pierrot is often said to be an alter ego of the artist, here, this whimsical, thoughtful and serene clown could evoke Rouault's own, newfound peace in the mid-1930s. "I spent my life painting twilights", Rouault reflected at the time, "I ought to have the right now to paint the dawn". Lionello Venturi added: "When he paints clowns, the grotesque becomes amiable, even lovable [...] colors grow rich and resplendent, almost as if the artist, laying aside his crusader's arms for a moment, were relaxing in the light of the sun and letting it flood into his work".

Art today is moving in directions of which our forebears had no inkling. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse are heard galloping through the air,” Marc wrote of this heady moment in his 1912 Der Blaue Reiter manifesto. “Artistic excitement can be felt all over Europe—new artists are signalling to one another from all sides.” This film can be viewed as representing the absurdity displayed in the war, as Cesare is symbolic of the innocent soldiers who were forced to kill others under the control of the government, represented by Dr. Caligari. Thus, German Expressionism existed as the appropriate movement to help employ the sense of anxiety and uneasiness that was felt throughout Germany in the aftermath of World War One. German silent cinema was arguably far ahead of Hollywood during the same period. [8] Cinema outside Germany benefited both from the emigration of German film makers and from German expressionist developments in style and technique that were apparent on the screen. The new look and techniques impressed other contemporary film makers, artists and cinematographers, and they began to incorporate the new style into their work. It is difficult to escape the stifling grasp of many of these wartime works, and indeed a number of the most iconic have become almost emblematic of German Expressionism as the movement’s most remembered images. As was the norm amongst modernists who wanted to represent the lives of "ordinary" workers, Rouault's prostitute paintings treated his sitters with a genuine, non-judgemental, empathy. Rouault represented his workers with an honest, unadorned, realism that allowed for (or, in his view, insisted upon) an emphasis on naked sensuality. He was thus able to eclipse the aims of his peers by the way he drew attention to the contradictions at play between his models' Rubenesque seductiveness and their societal exploitation.German Modernism emerged from turn-of-the-century Aestheticism. Like European Modernism as a whole, German Modernism was in fact a cluster of different literary movements, including Expressionism, Neue Sachlichkeit (“New Objectivity”), and Dada. Of these, Expressionism is the best known and most important. Beginning about 1910… Read More Karl Hofer, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, Ludwig Meidner, Edvard Munch, Don Kornits (2 June 1999). "Alex Proyas – Director, Dark City". eFilmCritic . Retrieved 6 July 2007. Bright and vivid colors, sweeping brushstrokes, bold markings and basic forms came together to create compositions that reflected emotion and expression. Artists interpreted reality through the lens of their own inner thoughts and feelings, providing a platform for audiences to explore the events happening around them in a deeper way. In turn, this encouraged audiences to expand their views of art as well.