Expressionism (1912-1935) Introduction

German Expressionist Artists: Kandinsky and Klee

• Die Brucke and Der Blaue Reiter were two dominant groups in the German Expressionist movement, led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, respectively.
• Expressionism flourished in museums and was collected, but in 1933, the Nazis started dismantling the artwork, removing 20,000 pieces from state-owned museums.
• In 1937, a defamatory show called Degenerate Art in Munich exhibited 740 modern works, portraying them as blasphemous and a plot against Germany.
• Wassily Kandinsky, born in Moscow, studied law but later pursued art in Munich, believing color directly influenced the soul.
• Kandinsky's important early painting, Der Blaue Reiter, was associated with the group he founded to express spirituality through color symbolism.
• Kandinsky was focused on how geometrical planes and elements intersected to create his paintings and believed color tones affected horizontal and vertical lines.
• Composition VII, a Kandinsky painting, is interpreted as the last judgment and resurrection, with symbolic forms representing biblical events.
• Paul Klee, born in Switzerland, studied in Munich, and was part of the Der Blaue Reiter group, and later taught at the Bauhaus.
• Klee was inspired by the unique light in Tunisia, using abstract forms and representations to portray his subject matter.
• Klee's Hammamet with Its Mosque depicts the city's exterior, with nonrepresentational, transparent geometric shapes in the lower section.
• Red Balloon by Klee is a set of softly colored geometric shapes representing a cityscape with a floating balloon, balancing red color elements.
• In 1938, Klee, suffering from a debilitating disease, created seven panels using charcoal and oil on newsprint pasted on linen or burlap, his signature elements being thick, dark lines.