Osher Lifelong Learning, Fall 2012

Osher Lifelong Learning, Fall 2012

German Expressionism: Bibliography and Chronology

Expressionism is a term that describes modernist or avant-garde movements that were post-Impressionist, including Matisse and the Fauves in France. In Germany, the term does not appear in criticism until 1911, but it is used to describe artistic forms from about 1905 to the 1930’s. The forms and themes of Expressionism involved the use of color, distortion, and abstraction as a means of conveying inner artistic vision – emotions and spirit – as opposed to representational reality. This was an anguished, anti-bourgeois, art, often centered in the urban, critical of materialism, and haunted by the suffering of war. Expressionism crossed the boundaries of painting, sculpture, printmaking, literature, cabaret life, opera, theater, dance, film, architecture and design. The German avant-garde was persecuted by the Nazis as soon as Hitler gained power in 1933, culminating in the two simultaneous shows, “Degenerate Art ”(Entartete Kunst) and “Great German Art Exhibition” (Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung), in the summer of 1937.

Useful General Resources

Elger, Dietmar. Expressionism: A Revolution in Art. NY: Taschen, 1998.

Hallman, Eckhard. The Blue Rider. Munich, London, and NY: Prestel, 2011.

Isenberg, Noah. Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era. NY: Columbia UP, 2009.

Roberts, Ian. German Expressionist Cinema: The World of Light and Shadow. London and NY: Wallflower, 2008.

Wolf, Norbert and Uta Grosenick. Expressionism. NY: Taschen, 2004.

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Chronology

1905. Founding of die Brücke (The Bridge) in Dresden (bridging the old and the new), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Fritz Bleyl, Karl Achmidt-Rotluff. Joined in 1906 by Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein.

Rise of Cabaret life in Munich. 1901. Founding of die Elf Scharfrichter (Eleven Executioners) the city’s first cabaret. The writer Frank Wedekind was a regular visitor and performed his satirical ballads (Moritaten).

1909. Oscar Kokoschka (Vienna) premiere of Murderer, Hope of Women. He later travels to Berlin and becomes the illustrator forDer Sturm, a weekly literary periodical, founded in 1910. 1911, Kirchner, Heckel and Schmidt-Rotluff move to Berlin.

Vasily Kandinsky, with others, especially from the Elf Scharfricher, foundsthe Phalanx School in Munich in 1901. Gabriele Munter is one of his students. Exhibitions of the New Artists Association, 1909-12.

Kandinsky’s interest in music and the stage (sound, color, movement). Franz Marc meets Kandinsky at the end of 1910. Schoenberg concert on January 2, 1911. Founding of The Blue Rider (der Blaue Reiter) in 1911. (The name may refer whimsically to a new savior of art.) “Improvisations” by Kandinsky. His Concerning the Spiritual in Art is published in 1912.

1913. Dissolution of Die Brücke. Kirchner begins his series of Berlin Street Scene paintings. First German Autumn Salon (Berlin) in the Galerie Der Sturm. Franz Marc, “The Fate of the Animals,”seen in retrospect to be a premonition of WWI; Marc will die in the war in 1916.

1914. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. A number of artists are drafted. Outbreak of war and initial jubilation in Germany. Kandinsky returns to Moscow via Odessa. August Macke dies on the front lines.

1918-1919. Artists become politically involved due to the war. A number of artists had had breakdowns or been injured. Workers Council for the Arts (Berlin, 1918-21). November Group (Berlin, 1919-32). (William Valentiner, future director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, joins this group.) Abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm. Signature of the armistice, with heavy indemnities. Founding of the German Communist Party. George Grosz joins the party; he leaves in 1923. Brutal murders of communist leaders. Weimar Republic set in place. Walter Gropius becomes the director of the School of Arts and Crafts (Weimar); it becomes the Bauhaus, a model of the unity of art, design, and architecture.

1920. Berlin premiere of the film “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” Mary Wigman founds her school of dance that will continue until 1942. Berlin cabarets like the Eldorado flourish in the 20’s. Brecht is highly influenced by cabaret style. The first international Dada Fair takes place in Berlin in 1920 and is linked to cabaret culture.

1921-1922. Paul Klee and then Kandinsky join the faculty of the Bauhaus. Economic destabilization increases. 1923. Otto Dix completes “Trench Warfare” (1920-23). Ernst Barlach (sculpture) and Käte Kollwitz (sculpture and prints) complete war memorials during the 20’s. (Kollwitz loses a son and then a grandson in WWI and II.)

1924. First NSDAP rally in Munich and failure of Hitler’s attempted putsch. Kurt Weill is in Berlin working on one-act operas with Georg Kaiser. Gropius decides to move the Bauhaus to Dessau; he will leave in 1929 and Mies van der Rohe will move it to Berlin; it will be closed in 1933.

1926. Exhibition, “New Objectivity: German Painting Since Expressionism,”Mannheim (including Beckmann, Grosz and Dix, among others). Berlin premiere of the film “Faust,” directed by F. W. Murnau.

1926-27. Three government ministerial cabinets, illustrative of the fragile Weimar Republic.

1927. Film premieres: “Metropolis” by Fritz Lang and “Berlin: A Symphony of a Great City” by Walter Ruttmann.

1928. The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper), Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill.

1929. Anti-Semitism increasing. Berlin premiere of the play The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schwejk (directed by Erwin Piscator and Brecht, designs by Grosz). Berlin Alexanderplatz, the novel by Alfred Döblin is published in Berlin. Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is also published in Berlin. The world economic crisis begins.

1930-33. Spiraling unemployment in Germany. Fritz Lang’s film “M” premieres. Hitler’s party gains in elections. The Reich Culture Chamber under Goebbels centralizes control of culture. Expulsions from the Prussian Academy of Fine Arts begin, along with purging of non-Aryan and non-conforming artists.

1934. Hitler is appointed Chancellor by President Hindenberg. Burning of the Reichstag.

1933-37. Confiscation of art works (for example, 1,000 by Eric Nolde, even though he had joined the Nazi Party. Expulsions of artists from teaching positions. The Degenerate Art Show. Artists retreat or leave the country (for example, Kirchner and Beckman). 1939. Approximately 5,000 works of art are burned in Berlin. Sculptures by Barlach are melted down for the war effort. During WWII the studios of many artists, along with their art, are destroyed during air raids in Berlin.