The Routledge Companion to Expressionism in a Transnational Context is a challenging exploration of the transnational formation, dissemination, and transformation of expressionism outside of the German-speaking world, in regions such as Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics and Scandinavia, Western and Southern Europe, North and Latin America, and South Africa, in the first half of the twentieth century. Comprising a series of essays by an international group of scholars in the fields of art history and literary and cultural studies, the volume addresses the intellectual discussions and artistic developments arising in the context of the expressionist movement in the various art centers and cultural regions. The authors also examine the implications of expressionism in artistic practice and its influence on modern and contemporary cultural production. Essential for an in-depth understanding and discussion of expressionism, this volume opens up new perspectives on developments in the visual arts of this period and challenges the traditional narratives that have predominantly focused on artistic styles and national movements.

Elegant sailing ships, expansive seascapes, crystal - clear spread - out views of architecture - with his unique pictorial language and range of subjects Lyonel Feininger became one of the most important artists of Classic Modernism, whose works remain very popular to this day. It was in Paris that Lyonel Feininger (1871 - 1956) abandoned his successful career as a caricaturist and began a life as an independent artist. Initially his pictures are peopled with grotesque, wild, travesty - like figures inspired by the street scenes of Paris. Shortly afterwards he discovered the typical pictorial subjects which would make him world - famous. Seldom has Feininger's artistic development from his early works to his last pictures in the United States been shown with such brilliance. With unpublished photographs and extracts from the unpublished diary of his wife Julia, this artist monograph provides an in - depth insight into the life and work of Feininger and will even surprise those who are familiar with his art.

Treasury of portraits, character studies, nudes, more, by great Viennese Expressionist.

First scholarly monograph devoted to Klee's poetry illuminates the reciprocity of poetry and painting in Klee's creative world and in early modernism. It is no coincidence that most of the artists at the vanguard of early 20th-century modernist art were poets as well as painters. Paul Klee (1879-1940) was among them. Known today almost exclusively as a visual artist, he was alsoa poet who experimented across a range of poetic forms. In 1901, while still vacillating between a career as a painter and one as a poet, Klee predicted he would end up expressing himself through the word, "the highest form of art." This first scholarly monograph devoted to Klee's poetry proposes that he lived up to that prediction. It considers poems he identified as such and visual images that are poetic in their compositional techniques, metaphorical imagery, and linear structures. It provides selected examples of Klee's poetry along with English translations that capture the spirit and literal meaning of the German originals. It places the poems and related images within the spectrum of contemporary poetic practice, revealing that Klee matched wits with Christian Morgenstern, rose to the provocations of Kurt Schwitters, and gave new form to the Surrealists' "exquisite corpses." Paul Klee, Poet/Painter is a case study in the reciprocity of poetry and painting in early modernist practice. It introduces a little-known facet of Klee's creative activity and re-evaluates his contributions to a modernist aesthetic. Kathryn Porter Aichele is Associate Professor in the Art Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The foundation stone for the exceptional collection of Gabriele and Anna Braglia was laid by an exhibition of German Expressionism in Venice. The collection will be made accessible to the public in Lugano starting in September. Fascinated by the vivid colours and great expressive power of the paintings, the Swiss couple acquired select paintings, watercolours and drawings, in particular those by Paul Klee, Emil Nolde and the Blauer Reiter artists. These are accompanied by works of art by Lyonel Feininger and Max Pechstein. This publication is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of the approximately fifty works of art, which represent important contributions to Expressionism.

This book examines the art and writings of Wassily Kandinsky, who is widely regarded as one of the first artists to produce non-representational paintings. Crucial to an understanding of Kandinsky's intentions is "On the Spiritual in Art," the celebrated essay he published in 1911. Where most scholars have taken its repeated references to "spirit" as signaling quasi-religious or mystical concerns, Florman argues instead that Kandinsky's primary frame of reference was G.W.F. Hegel's "Aesthetics," in which art had similarly been presented as a vehicle for the developing self-consciousness of spirit (or "Geist," in German). In addition to close readings of Kandinsky's writings, the book also includes a discussion of a 1936 essay on the artist's paintings written by his own nephew, philosopher Alexandre Kojeve, the foremost Hegel scholar in France at that time. It also provides detailed analyses of individual paintings by Kandinsky, demonstrating how the development of his oeuvre challenges Hegel's views on modern art, yet operates in much the same manner as does Hegel's philosophical system. Through the work of a single, crucial artist, Florman presents a radical new account of why painting turned to abstraction in the early years of the twentieth century.

This book reveals that James Ensor did not develop his fantastic and grotesque universe of masks and skeletons out of his melancholic soul, but that he re-used and transformed an old image tradition that was collected and published by the French author and art critic Jules Champfleury in his History of Caricature. A second essay analyses how these weird creatures infiltrate the image borders and the frames of Ensor's paintings in order to disturb the 'normal' world.

This graphic novel by an Expressionist master offers a stunning depiction of urban Europe between the world wars. First published in Germany in 1925, it presents 100 woodcuts of remarkable force and beauty that depict scenes of work and leisure, wealth and deprivation, and joy and loneliness.

Colourful, emotional, impulsive and modern - these are the qualities which characterise our ideas of German Expressionist painting. It is hard to believe that the works caused a scandal when they were first created. And yet, artists and writers were united in the vision of a new beginning combined with fundamental social criticism. Many aspects like the social problems of the big city, the sleazy glamour of the world of entertainment and the rejection of new technology remain surprisingly topical to this day. Immerse yourself in the powerful images and texts of world literature and embark on a journey of discovery through the world of the early 20th century with its atmosphere of change and decay. With works by Max Beckmann, Heinrich Campendonck, Lyonel Feininger, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Alexej von Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, August Macke, Franz Marc, Ludwig Meidner, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Otto Mueller, Gabriele Munter, Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, Marianne von Werefkin et al. With texts by Walter Benjamin, Gottfried Benn, Anton Chekhov, Alfred Doblin, Theodor Fontane, Oskar Maria Graf, Franz Kafka, Else Lasker-Schuler, Heinrich Mann, Klaus Mann, Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, Vladimir Nabokov, Rainer Maria Rilke, Joseph Roth, Arthur Schnitzler, Herwarth Walden, Stefan Zweig et al.

Sharp angles, strange forms, lurid colors, and distorted perspectives are classic hallmarks of Expressionism, the twentieth century movement that prioritized emotion over objective reality. Though particularly present in Germany and Austria, the movement's approach flourished internationally and is today hailed as one of the most influential shifts in art history. With leading groups Die Brucke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), and key players such as Wassily Kandinsky, Egon Schiele,and Emil Nolde, the Expressionists disowned Impressionism, which they regarded as "man lowered to the position of a gramophone record of the outer world", to depict instead a raw and visceral experience of life as it was felt, rather than seen on the surface. Their paintings brim with emotive force, conveyed in particular through intense and non-naturalistic color palettes, loose brushwork, and thick textures. Covering the group's stylistic tendencies, influences, and most important protagonists, this introductory book explores the Expressionist panorama of moods, ideas, and emotions and their abiding quest for deep authenticity. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art History series features: approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions a detailed, illustrated introduction a selection of the most important works of the epoch, each presented on a two-page spread with a full-page image and accompanying interpretation, as well as a portrait and brief biography of the artist

Alhoewel sy vandag onthou word as een van die land se beroemdste en geliefdste kunstenaars, het die moderne en unieke styl van Maggie Laubser aanvanklik veel meer kritiek as erkenning gelok. Met 'n unieke invalshoek en fokus op haar 149 skilderye wat sedert haar heengaan in 1973 in die Universiteit Stellenbosch se kunsversameling opgeneem is, bring 'n Venster op altyd lig hulde aan en neem lesers op 'n reis deur die lewe en werke van 'n selfekspressionistiese kunstenaar deur wie die Suid-Afrikaanse kunsgeskiedenis sonder twyfel aansienlik verryk is.

The Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) achieved world fame with his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes. In this detailed biography, Rudiger Goerner masterfully depicts the multifaceted artist's life and long career. He traces Kokoschka's path from being the bugbear of the bourgeoisie and a 'hunger artist' to becoming a wealthy and cosmopolitan political and critical artist who went on to shape the European art scene of the 20th century and beyond. The great painter's works as a playwright, essayist and poet bear witness to his remarkable literary quality. Music played a central role in his work, and his passion for teaching led him to establish in 1953 the School of Seeing, an unconventional art school conceived by Kokoschka as an attempt to revive humanist ideals in the horrific aftermath of war. The life and work of Oskar Kokoschka are a reaction against the monochrome monotony of existence; Goerner's biography portrays the artist in all his fascinating and contradictory complexity.

Apocalypse, the city, war, religion, the portrait, exile and existential trauma - Ludwig Meidner (1884-1966) is regarded as one of the outstanding artists of German Expressionism. With the accuracy of a seismograph he recorded in his pictorial and literary works the shocks which reverberated through his time. To mark the 50th anniversary of the death of the Jewish artist Ludwig Meidner attention has been focused on the works produced during his period of exile in London between 1939 and 1953 - sketchbooks, watercolours and charcoal and chalk drawings produced under the most difficult conditions. They represent an intense mixture of internal experience and contemporary commentary. With merciless directness and symbolic condensation the works tell of terror, isolation, persecution and destruction as well as a grotesquely absurd world which Meidner spotlighted in an idiosyncratic way, combining mockery with mordant humour and sarcasm with bizarre exaggeration.

Over 100 works by Beckmann, Feininger, Kirchner, Kollwitz, Nolde, Marc, others.

An Expressionist before the term was coined, James Ensor (1860-1949) was the classic insider-outsider enigma. He knew all the right art-world figures but loathed most of them. His style lurched from the Gothic fantastical to the Christian visionary. He was a cosmopolitan trailblazer of modernism, but lived reclusively in an attic room in the resort town of Ostend. For all his elusiveness, Ensor influenced generations of artists through his vivid often gruesome paintings, prints, and drawings. He is cited in particular for his use of dark satire and allegory, his innovative lighting, and for his interest in carnival and performance, showcased in The Entry of Christ into Brussels in 1889 as well as in his repertoire of self-portraits in which he employs masking, travesty, and role-playing to adopt such varied guises as Christ on the Cross and a gender-bending dandy. This introduction to Ensor explores the richness and variety of his imagery through key examples of his macabre, maverick oeuvre. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

"An indispensable anthology that immediately renders its predecessors obsolete. With its gathering of public and private documents, it carries us through the rise and fall of one of the great upheavals of modern art."--Robert Rosenblum, New York University

"These essays, including many previously unavailable in English, are rich with startling new insights into the German Expressionist psyche. Elucidating the artists' view of government, the role of women in modern society, and their own ambivalence about the effectiveness of abstract art, this anthology is essential reading for all scholars and students of twentieth-century art."--Joan Marter, author of "Alexander Calder

The term Neo-Dada surfaced in New York in the late 1950s and was used to characterize young artists like Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns whose art appeared at odds with the serious emotional and painterly interests of the then-dominant movement, abstract expressionism. Neo-Dada quickly became the word of choice in the early 1960s to designate experimental art, including assemblage, performance, pop art, and nascent forms of minimal and conceptual art. "An Audience of Artists" turns this time line for the postwar New York art world on its head, presenting a new pedigree for these artistic movements. Drawing on an array of previously unpublished material, Catherine Craft reveals that Neo-Dada, far from being a reaction to abstract expressionism, actually originated at the heart of that movement's concerns about viewers, originality, and artists' debts to the past and one another. Furthermore, she argues, the original Dada movement was not incompatible with abstract expressionism. In fact, Dada provided a vital historical reference for artists and critics seeking to come to terms with the radical departure from tradition that abstract expressionism seemed to represent. Tracing the activities of artists such as Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, and Jackson Pollock alongside Marcel Duchamp's renewed embrace of Dada in the late 1940s, Craft composes a subtle exploration of the challenges facing artists trying to work in the wake of a destructive world war and the paintings, objects, writings, and installations that resulted from their efforts. Providing the first examination of the roots of the Neo-Dada phenomenon, this groundbreaking study significantly reassesses the histories of these three movements and offers new ways of understanding the broader issues related to the development of modern art.

Invisible Cathedrals places Wilhelm Worringer in the foreground of discussions of Expressionism and German Modernism for the first time. These essays not only reveal the complexities of his individual works, such as Abstraction and Empathy (1908) and Form Problems of the Gothic (1911), they also examine his lesser-known books and essays of the post-World War I years, the 1920s, and beyond.

Invisible Cathedrals offers both a basic introduction to Worringer's writings and their broad influence, and a profound and detailed revisionist analysis of his significance in German and European Modernism. It also provides the most comprehensive bibliography to date of his own work and of the scattered criticism devoted to Worringer in different disciplines.

Worringer's works were provocative, widely read, and often reprinted and were highly influential among artists and writers in Germany. As a result, they both raised suspicion in his own academic discipline of art history and excited discussion in other diverse fields, such as literary and social theory, psychology, and film theory. Worringer emerges here not solely as a scholarly commentator on the history of art, but also as an activist scholar who engaged his historical criticism of other periods directly in the production of culture in his own time.

Contributors are Magdalena Bushart, Neil H. Donahue, Charles W. Haxthausen, Michael W. Jennings, Joseph Masheck, Geoffrey Waite, and Joanna E. Ziegler.

Harold Rosenberg was undoubtedly the most important American art critic of the twentieth century. It was he who first coined the term "Action Painters" to refer to the American Abstract Expressionists such as Pollock, Kline, and de Kooning. Rosenberg's seminal writings on this movement, as well as on other artists such as Newman and Rothko, appear in The Tradition of the New (1959), his first and most influential book its effects on subsequent art criticism, and the practice of art itself, are still felt today. The essays in this book are not limited to the art world, however: He also discusses poetry, political and cultural theory, and popular culture. As wide-ranging, independent, and deeply probing as the essays of Walter Benjamin, Harold Rosenberg's The Tradition of the New is a true classic of twentieth-century criticism.