The historical origins of Expressionism

The term expressionism is generally used to describe the German painting and drawing style that opposed academic traditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a literary and artistic school popular in some European and American countries from the early 20th century to the 1930s. It was most popular in Germany and Austria after World War I. It first appeared in the art world and later developed significantly in the fields of music, literature, drama and film.

The term expressionism was originally the general title of a group of oil paintings by Julien-Auguste Hervé at the Matisse exhibition held in Paris, France in 1901. It was used to associate with naturalism and impressionism. phase difference.

In 1911, Hillel published an article in the magazine "Storm" and used the term "expressionism" for the first time to refer to Berlin's avant-garde writers.

After 1914, the term expressionism was gradually recognized and adopted by people.

Expressionist societies such as the Bridge Society, organized in 1905, and the Blue Rider Society, established in 1909, emerged in Germany. Their aesthetic goals and artistic pursuits are similar to French Brutalism, but they have a strong Nordic color and the characteristics of German national tradition. Expressionism was influenced by industrial technology and showed the static beauty of objects.

Nietzsche played a guiding and key role in the formation of Expressionism through his criticism of ancient art. In his "The Birth of Tragedy", Nietzsche divided ancient art into two categories, Apollonian art is the art of reason, order, rules and elegance; Dionysian art is vicious, chaotic and crazy. Art. Apollonian art represents intellectual ideals, while Dionysian art comes from the human subconscious. The two art forms are identical with the gods who represent them: both are sons of God, incompatible and indistinguishable. Nietzsche believed that any work of art contains both forms. The basic characteristics of Expressionism are Dionysian: bright colors, distorted forms, technical insouciance, flatness, lack of perspective, based on feeling rather than reason.

Expressionism in a broad sense refers to any art that expresses inner feelings. Of course all works of art express the artist's emotions, but some works particularly emphasize and express the artist's inner feelings. Such works were especially common during periods of social unrest, and such unrest was often repeated in European history starting from the 15th century: the Reformation, the German Peasants' War, the Eight Years' War, etc., all of which were turbulent and oppressive in printed works. left its traces. Although these works are generally unspectacular from an artistic perspective, they have always been able to arouse strong emotions in their viewers through the horrors they depict.

Expressionism (2009 Cihai definition): also known as "Expressionism". A literary and artistic trend and genre popular in the modern West. It emerged in the early 20th century and flourished in Germany, the United States and other countries in the 1920s and 1930s. ·It is required to break through the appearance of things and highlight their inner essence, break through the description of human behavior and wedge into their inner soul, break through the description of temporary phenomena and display eternal quality or "truth". Deeply influenced by Kant, Bergson and Freud. Due to the emphasis on describing eternal qualities, the characters in the novel are often some kind of sexual abstraction and symbol; due to the emphasis on writing about the heart, intuition and subconscious, inner monologues, dreams, subtexts, masks and other means are often used; due to the emphasis on the author's subjective point of view, To absorb the essence of things, we often consciously distort objective phenomena. Kafka is a representative figure in novels, and Strindberg is a representative figure in drama.