LESSON 2: EXPRESSIONISM

A bold new movement

In the early 1900s, a movement arose in the Western art movement that came to be known as expressionism.

Expressionist artists created works with more emotional force, rather than with realistic or natural images. To achieve this, they distorted outlines, applied strong colors, and exaggerated forms.

They work worked more with their imagination and feelings, rather than with what their eyes saw in the physical world

The emotional expression showed in their work involved fear, violence, chaos, morbidity, tragedy or defeat.

EDWARD MUNCH - The Scream (expresses his total emotional outburst)

He was a Norwegian painter whose works reflected a morbid obsession with sickness and isolation.

ERNEST LUDWIG KIRCHNER - The Street

OSCAR KOKOSCHKA - Amorous Couple with Cat, Knight Errant

SURREALISM

Surrealism was a style that depicted an illogical, subconscious dream world that seemed to exist beyond the logical, conscious, physic alone.

Its name came from the term “super realism,” with its artworks clearly expressing a departure from reality – as though the artists were dreaming, seeing illusions, or experiencing an altered mental state

Many surrealist works depicted morbid or gloomy subjects, as in those by perhaps the best- known surrealist Salvador Dali.

SALVADOR DALI - The Persistence of Memory, Swan Reflecting Elephants, The Elephants

Spanish Surrealist painter and printmaker known for exploring subconscious images.

He is known for his most famous painting, The Persistence of Memory.

OP ART

Another movement that emerged in the 1960s was optical art or “op art.”

This was yet another experiment in visual experience- a form of “action painting,” with the action taking place in the viewer’s eye.

In op art, lines, spaces, and colors were precisely planned and positioned to give the illusion of movement

VICTOR VASARELY - Zebra, Vega 200, Vega Nor

Hungarian-French artist, who is widely accepted as a "grandfather" and leader of the Op art movement.

His work titled Zebra, created in 1937, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op art.