Expressionism: Alive and Well

In 1976 Paul Vogt, speaking as literary historian, expresses his opinion that whether expressionism had existed at all. He also point out that only a few artists described themselves as expressionists.

In twenty century, expressionism shows the essential nature of German art and characters’ position within the context of international artistic developments. Later, expressionism has been written as not only art but also literature.

“Morder, Hoffnug Der Franen” (1910) is the first page of and a drawing of Oskar Kokaschka to his drama. Totally, it describes a strong man, who has a tattoo on his back and bushy hair, trample on a half naked and bleeding woman. Base on the drawing, the guy was going to kill a woman with a knife. Kokoschka wants to remind people the violence of war with the unfair and dark side. It is expressionism drawing because he uses hatching to describe the hair, blood, shadow, and muscles. He does not pay a lot of attention on the clothes; however, he does put emphasis on the emotion of their faces. Also there is a dog at background which is eager to share a piece of the dead body. As expressionism is, it shows essential natural of German art. About eighty percent of whole drawing is finish by hatching. Since they use a lot of hatching, he might use ink or charcoal as the media. Subjectively, this drawing shows different personalities for each character. It would be more successful there is a cut on woman’s body, a comment said. That will be much better to focus on the topic- bloody violence.

“The Night” (1918-1920, oil on canvas) was made during WW1 by Max Beckman. The war had changed him to search for a new definition of reality, which at first still seemed possible through late expressionism. But he soon realized that the tired and tested media of expressive distortion were incapable to express the reality that he had experienced. Finally he figured out that reality could not be reproduced, it must be created. There are seven people in the drawing, and two of them are victims- one male and one female. The two victims are punishing by one injured solider and another solider with a service cap. From painter position, People can see the painful emotion on the male victim’s face because he was going to be hung to death. The half-naked female victim was being burned by two living candles.