Voices of German Expressionism

Fülszöveg

Ranging over the years 1900-1933, which saw the turbulence of World War I and the emerging forces of Nazism pointing toward a second world war, the Expressionist movement represented a ^common determination to subordinate form and nature to emotional and visionary experience/7 states Victor H. Miesel. This volume brings together essays, letters, dramas, and poems which reveal the full depth of thought of Klee, Kirchner, Kokoschka, Kandinsky, Beckmann, and twelve other Expressionist artists. Some selections illuminate the artist's feelings about his work, as does Max Beckmann's pronouncement: "... I paint to develop my style in terms of deep space, something which . . . penetrates into the very core of nature and the spirit of things/7 Others, such as Franz Marc's "In War's Purifying Fire," illustrate the artist's involvement in events taking place around him. Taken together, these selections provide a broad perspective on German Expressionism, and how it became, in (continued on... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Ranging over the years 1900-1933, which saw the turbulence of World War I and the emerging forces of Nazism pointing toward a second world war, the Expressionist movement represented a ^common determination to subordinate form and nature to emotional and visionary experience/7 states Victor H. Miesel. This volume brings together essays, letters, dramas, and poems which reveal the full depth of thought of Klee, Kirchner, Kokoschka, Kandinsky, Beckmann, and twelve other Expressionist artists. Some selections illuminate the artist's feelings about his work, as does Max Beckmann's pronouncement: "... I paint to develop my style in terms of deep space, something which . . . penetrates into the very core of nature and the spirit of things/7 Others, such as Franz Marc's "In War's Purifying Fire," illustrate the artist's involvement in events taking place around him. Taken together, these selections provide a broad perspective on German Expressionism, and how it became, in (continued on back flap)
(continued from front flap) Miesel's words, "an elastic concept comprising ... a mystical and a revolutionary world view embracing painters, sculptors, architects, composers, dramatists, poets, even whole periods, races, and cultures/7 ¦HSBKssnm VICTOR H. MIESEL is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has published numerous reviews in the field of modern art, and is author of "The Term Expressionism in the Visual Arts" in The Uses of History. Dr. Miesel is currently engaged in research on the impact of war and revolution on German art, 1914-20. Vissza