What is Expressionism?



In the early 20th Century, there was a period of loss in spirituality and high anxiety, surrounding humans’ relationship with the world. At this time, artists began to shun objectiveness and turned within to unleash their emotions. The result was an expressive canvas with distorted shapes and exaggerated, vibrant colours that displayed emotions, rather than a picture. There, Expressionism was born.



The artists at the forefront of this movement were Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard Munch and James Ensor. Van Gogh, particularly, was the symbol of this movement since his paintings were mostly autobiographical and chronicled his emotions at different times of his life. Unlike Impressionism, Expressionist art did not aim to depict the world as it is but impose the artist’s sensibilities and feelings about the world. The paintings were harsh, bold and intense, and the artists encouraged distorted shapes in order to convey or exaggerate emotions.



The decline of Expressionism was also because of its intensely personal nature. The paintings were vague and unapproachable, and by the mid 1920s, the movement slowly came to an end.



Examples




  • The Starry Night: Painted in 1889 by Vincent Van Gogh, this painting depicts the scene that Van Gogh saw from his window at his asylum room at saint-Remy-de-Provence in France. An icon of Expressionist art, its swirling skies and the sinister cypress tree overlooking this scene are all reproductions of Van Gogh’s emotions on canvas.

  • The Scream: Edvard Munch’s most famous painting is everything that Expressionism is about. Throughout his career, Munch’s art described emotions such as anger, guilt, anxiety and fear while talking about humans’ relationship with the world around them. “The Scream” is no different, and often, just a look at this painting can create an emotional jolt due to its vibrant colours and exaggerated, distorted shapes.

  • Sunflowers: This iconic painting by Van Gogh is one part of two series of paintings. The first series had the sunflowers wilted and on the ground, while the second had a bunch of sunflowers placed in vases. The sunflower was special to Van Gogh and signified ‘gratitude’ and he hung his first two paintings on the wall in his friend Paul Gaugin’s house. Gaugin called the paintings ‘completely Vincent.’



Wow facts




  • Expressionists often had swirls and swaying components in their art, exaggerated and painted with bold brushstrokes to depict their own internal turmoil.

  • On his painting “Scream”, Norwegian artists Edvard Munch said he was walking with friends when “suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood… Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature”.



 



Picture Credit : Google


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