Expressions From Within

“Expressionism is not an impression from outside, but an expression from inside.” - Herwarth Walden (1917.)

Expressionsist art is distorted for the sake of conveying inner vision.

Transforms reality, not imitates it.

Revoltt against realism, naturalism, impressionism.

presents world as it is subjectively seized.

“Art is no longer used to reproduce that which is visible, but rather to make things visible.” - Paul Klee (1817-1940).

It is less a “style,” but more of a “direction” or “tendency;” it is a manifestation of a young generation’s feeling for life.

Friedrich Wilhem Nietzsche (1844-1900), wrote about nihilism, art, morality, religion, theory of knowledg.e

According to Nietzsche, the meaning of life is to be found in purely human terms.

The Will to Power & Thus Spoke Zarathustra gave prominence to artist’s emotions; “wild existential anger.

Nietzsche was the earthquake of the epoch for my generation.” - Gottfried Benn (1886-1956) Expressionist.

“One of the most decisive turning points in the history of the European mind.”

“The idea of the creative imagination, as it sprang up in the Romantic era, is still central to modern culture.” - Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (1989).

“Convulsion in the European spirit.” & “a shift in consciousness [which] cracked the backbone of European thought.” - Sir Isaiah Berlin.

Goethe’s The Sufferings of Young Werther brings to the forefront human emotion & the disposition of the INDIVIDUAL.

Goethe was guided by strength of INNER PERCEPTION, rather than KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL.

Romanticism is the true heir to Romantic expressive theory; romanticism’s goal is fulfilled in expressionist literature and art.

“...The spiritual movement of a time that places inner experience above external life.” - Lothar Schreyer.

“The great merit of Romanticism is that it laid the foundation stone for that art of the future is the art of emotion.” - Rene Schickele

“What today we frequently call Expressionism, would yesterday have been called Romanticism.”

People truly begin to discuss and address their emotions.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe pens the Bible of young Romantics, The Suffering of Young Werther, in 1774.

Subtopic

Goethe tells the story of Werther, and it is filled with: aggravated introspection, exaltation of desires, maniacal solipsism, and unrequited love.

“The heart is the source of all things.” - Goethe

The Dears - You And I Are A Gang Of Losers: "We’ve got the same heart."

The Stills - Love & Death: "Logic will break your heart."

The Cure - Pictures of You: "Pictures are all that’s left."

Human reason and the individual become more valued than ever before.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau posited that emotion is the guide to reason, because emotions are the "inner experience" of self.

“I have resolved on an enterprise which has no precedent, and which, once complete, will have no imitator. My purpose is to display to my kind a portrait in every way true to nature, and the man I shall portray is myself.” - Rousseau, Confessions (1776-1770).

Charles Beaudalaire once said: “[Romanticism] is neither a choice of subject nor exact truth, but a mode of feeling--something found within rather than outside the individual.” Works of art are ultimately consequences of emotions and of the inner spirit of the artist.

NOT representing EXTERNAL, objective world, instead seeks to present an INNER SUBJECTIVE WORLD.