At our March meeting we moved on from art of the Viennese Secession to the development of German Expressionism. We began with an enthusiastic overview of the whole movement from artist and teacher Steve Carroll. The leading artists discussed were: Ernst Kirchner, Erich Hechel, Karl Schmidt-Rottlüff, Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde, Franz Marc, Wassily Kandinsky and his partner Gabriele Münter, Paul Klee, August Macke and Max Beckmann. Phew! I can’t possibly cover all of them in a short report, but can only pick out trends and highlights.
Accounts of German Expressionism usually begin with the groupings known as ‘Die Brücke’ (The Bridge) and ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ (The Blue Rider). Both were in revolt against the prevailing classicism of the academies, and focused on developing a new artistic language of direct expression through colour and form. Although influenced by the new trends appearing in France, from Impressionism and the Fauves to Cubism, they evolved their own distinctive style, combining these with elements from folklore and the German woodcut tradition (see Kirchner’s Berlin street scenes, for example),
Several of the artists were based in Munich and the nearby village of Murnau, where Kandinsky and Münter settled in 1909. She is a very remarkable artist who has been overshadowed by the famous males surrounding her, but is now recognised for her own distinctive contribution.