By Luke Wentzell (TC5NSB8W1)
The Expressionism Art Movement
The meaning behind the term Expressionism is when real life is distorted to express the artist’s inner emotions or thoughts (Tate, 2020).
The expressionism art movement started around the same time in different cities across Germany as a reply to the public’s anxiety about the rising harsh relationship with the world and the missing emotions of genuineness and religion. This caused a reaction against impressionism as well as academic art, Expressionism was inspired mostly by the symbolist in the late-19th century art. Arts such as Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch as well as James Ensor was influential to the expressionists, motivating the misrepresentation of form and incorporating of strong colours to convey a range of anxieties and yearnings (Wolf, 2012).
In expressionist art work, colour can be used in a way that is intense and non-naturalistic, the brush movements are normally free and the applying of paint is also normally very textured. Expressionism art can be emotional and at times mystical (Tate, 2020).
Expressionism Example
The Old Guitarist (1903) by Pablo Picasso (pablopicasso, 2020)
This is an art piece by Pablo Picasso titled The Old Guitarist. This artwork was done in 1903, after the death of a close friend of Picasso’s by the name of Casagemas. In this period, Picasso was understanding to the troubles of the broken and painted many canvases portraying the miseries of the unfortunate, the unwell and those cast out of society. Picasso recognized the feeling of being broke, as he was penniless during the year 1902. The Old Guitarist was painted in Madrid, and the unclear style with regards to the upper part of the guitarist looks to be reclining, while the lower part of the guitarist seems to be sitting with legs crossed which resembles the works from El Greco. The painting portrays a bent and blind man holding near to him big, round shaped guitar. Its brown figure shows the paintings only change in colour. Physically and symbolically, the instrument takes the space around the figure, making the man seem as if he is unaware of his blindness and poverty as he performs. Around the time that the painting was created, literature of the Symbolist movement incorporated characters that could not see but carried the powers of inner vision. The skinny skeletonlike body of the blind musician shows Picasso’s background by including his native country, Spain. The old man’s stretched out limbs and restricted, pointed pose bring to mind the figures of the great 16th century artist El Greco (Pablopicasso, 2020).
Modern Example
Echoes from the world (2015) by Helena Wierzbicki (artist, 2020)
This is a modern design piece done by Helena Wierzbicki titled Echoes from the world. The art work shows a style of abstract, expressionism, fauvism as well as fine art. The kind of genre represented in this painting is People,Portrait. The bold colours of blue, green, red, purple, yellow used in the artwork resembling a lady with her head titled down with long hair hanging on the side of her face and some placed behind her ear falling down the back of her neck with a colourful background added (artist,2020).
Bibliography:
Artist.com. 2020. Echoes from the world. https://artist.com/helena-wierzbicki/echoes-from-world/?artid=2937 Date of access: 3 August 2020.
Pablopicasso.2020.The Old Guitarist, 1903 by Pablo Picasso. https://www.pablopicasso.org/old-guitarist.jsp#prettyPhoto Date of access: 3 August 2020.
Tate. 2020. Expressionism.https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/e/expressionism Date of access: 3 August 2020.
Wolf, J.2012. Expressionism Movement Overview and Analysis. https://www.theartstory.org/movement/expressionism/ Date of access: 3 August 2020.
