Expressionism

Expressionism

    Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting. It is originated in Germany. Expressinism is artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person. The artist accomplishes this aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements.    The expressionistic tradition was significantly, rose to the emergence with a series of paintings of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh from the last year and a half of his life. There was recorded his heightened emotional state. One of the earliest and most famous examples of Expressionism is Gogh's "The Starry Night." Whatever was cause, it cannot be denied that a great many artists of this period assumed that the chief function of art was to express their intense feelings to the world.
     In the years just around 1910 the expressionistic approach pioneered by Ensor, Munch, and van Gogh, in particular, was developed in the work of three artists' groups: the Fauves, Die Brucke, Der Blaue Reiter.      Main representatives of Expressionism are; Vincent van Gogh, James Ensor, Edvard Munch, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, Marc Chagal, Salvador Dali, Henri Metisse, Amadeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin.

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. His paintings and drawings include some of the world's best known, most popular and most expensive piece. Expressive luminosity of color and blotchy brushwork are Vincent van Gogh's distinguishing characteristics which made him the model of expressionist painters at the turn of the century.     Initially, van Gogh worked only with somber colors, until he encountered Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. Although his own painting style was primarily developed autodidactically, he incorporated impressionistic brighter colors and their style of painting into his, uniquely recognizable style. It was fully developed after he settled in Arles, and this stay in Provence. It is seen as the zenith of his creative work.

     He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life. Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, during which time he cut off part of his left ear following a breakdown in his friendship with Paul Gauguin. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness. In 1890, he died from the consequences of the attempt of suicide.

     Van Gogh's pictures, which were not saleable during his lifetime, are today auctioned at very high prices. He is a pioneer of what came to be known as Expressionism. He had an enormous influence on 20th century art, especially on the Fauves and German Expressionists.