The paintings and prints by Die Brücke artists encompassed all varieties of subject matter—the human figure, landscape, portraiture, still life—executed in a simplified style that stressed bold outlines and strong colour planes.
The surviving Brücke artists were appointed to academic posts after 1945 and their postwar paintings could and were used to rehabilitate German culture because they represented a significant modern art movement.
The movement contributed to the revival of the woodcut, making it a powerful means of expression in the 20th century. The first Die Brücke exhibition, held in 1906 in the Seifert lamp factory in Dresden, marked the beginning of German Expressionism.
Die Brücke Painters in the Nazi Period, concentrating on the artists Erich Heckel (1883-1970), Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976), Max Pechstein (1881-1950) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938). In 1905, this group founded the artistic collective known as Die Brücke (The Bridge).
Die Brücke art was also deeply influenced by the expressive simplifications of late German Gothic woodcuts and by the prints of the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. The movement contributed to the revival of the woodcut, making it a powerful means of expression in the 20th century. The first Die Brücke exhibition, ...
The first Die Brücke exhibition, held in 1906 in the Seifert lamp factory in Dresden, marked the beginning of German Expressionism. From this date until 1913, regular exhibitions were held. (By 1911, however, Die Brücke’s activities had shifted to Berlin, where several of the members were living.)
Like many avant-garde artists at the time, Kirchner and Heckel admired the apparent lack of artifice in art from places such as Africa and the Pacific islands and emulated this supposedly “primitive” quality in their own work.
Western painting: The 20th century. …the style of Kirchner and Die Brücke (“The Bridge”) group, which had been founded in 1905, the label of Expressionism. The worldly subjects of Kirchner represented only one aspect of the group; the earthy Primitivism of Emil Nolde and the emphatic pictorial rhetoric of Karl Schmidt-Rottluff were more typical.
In 1913, provoked by Kirchner’s highly subjective accounts of their activities in the Chronik der Künstlergemeinschaft Brücke, the group disbanded. This article was most recently revised and updated by Jeff Wallenfeldt, Manager, Geography and History.
Both…. … formed a loose association called Die Brücke (“The Bridge”). The group included Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Fritz Bleyl. These painters were in revolt against what they saw as the superficial naturalism of academic Impressionism. They wanted to reinfuse German art with a spiritual vigour they felt it lacked,….
Alternative Title: The Bridge. Die Brücke, (German: “The Bridge”) organization of German painters and printmakers that from 1905 to 1913 played a pivotal role in the development of Expressionism.
A Word of Art (eighth edition) Chapter 5…
The relationship between Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse can best be described as one of mutual?
Caspar David Friedrich developed a significant reputation in his early career. However, his reputation declined in his later years as critics, who failed to understand his work, severely attacked it. He died poor and in obscurity; and it was not till the middle of the 20th century that he found favor with the new generation of critics and art historians. Today, Friedrich is an icon in Germany, is internationally renowned and is considered the most important German artist of Romanticism, an art movement that laid emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of the past and nature. Friedrich is viewed as a figure of great psychological complexity, “a celebrator of beauty haunted by darkness”. He is best known for works which put humans amid night skies, morning mists, barren trees, etc. thus illustrating diminished strength of man in the larger scale of life. Freidrich took landscape art and infused it with deep religious and spiritual significance. He is considered one of the most important artists in the genre.
German expressionists, led by Franz Marc and Emil Nolde, were vital in shaping the movement. Germany continues to shape the contemporary art scene with artists like Anselm Kiefer and Gerhard Richter being considered among the greatest in the world.
Expressionism was a movement which originated in Germany and is regarded as one of the most influential art movements of the 20th century. Its artists distorted form and used strong colors to express emotional experience rather than physical reality. Die Brücke (The Bridge) was a group of German artists who had a major impact on Expressionism and the evolution of modern art. Emil Nolde is the most renowned artist of this influential group. Among other things, Nolde reintroduced religious subject matter, revitalized the dwindling medium of printmaking and was one of the first 20th century painters to explore color in detail. Emil Nolde is regarded as one of the most important contributors to Expressionism , especially due to his representation of religious imagery in a new, colorful style. More than anything else, his art creates a bridge from Germany’s distant visual past to its more radical future.
He uses uncommon materials in his pieces; such as straw, ash, clay, lead and shellac. Many of these reference various aspects of history and myth, German and otherwise.
Anselm Kiefer is most renowned for monumental canvases which explore German history, especially the horror of the Holocaust. These works forced his contemporaries to deal with the subject in an era when acknowledgment of Nazism was taboo. Kiefer incorporates heavy impasto, a technique in painting where paint is laid in layers that are so think that the brushstrokes are visible. He uses uncommon materials in his pieces; such as straw, ash, clay, lead and shellac. Many of these reference various aspects of history and myth, German and otherwise. He also incorporates text into his paintings; including excerpts from poems, novels and nationalist slogans. The entire career of Kiefer is marked by lack of hesitation in confronting taboos and controversial issues from recent history. In 2005, Anselm Kiefer was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He remains one of the most famous contemporary German artists.
He also incorporates text into his paintings; including excerpts from poems, novels and nationalist slogans. The entire career of Kiefer is marked by lack of hesitation in confronting taboos and controversial issues from recent history.
Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) was a German movement that arose in reaction against Expressionism, which dominated the western art world at that time . It rejected the introverted emotionalism and romantic longings of the expressionists; and instead sought clarity and definition through “matter-of-fact” observation of material reality. Along with George Grosz, Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix is widely considered the most important artist of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement. His paintings and drawings vividly depict and severely criticize the corruption, frantic pleasure seeking and general demoralization of Germany following its defeat in the First World War, and the ineffectual Weimar Republic which governed till 1933. Otto Dix is renowned for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions which may be seen as savage satire on the human condition. He is one of the most famous German artists of the 20th century.
In their manifesto, the Brücke artists distanced themselves from the prevailing school of Impressionism. “Everyone belongs with us who reflects what compels him to create in a direct and unadulterated manner.” They were not interested in influencing social reality through their art, as Käthe Kollwitz was, but sought instead to capture their subjective view of the world using artistic means.
Like other Expressionist painters and writers and many other artists of the time, the Brücke painters were strongly influenced by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. They understood their art to be a form of “spiritual self-liberation.” Heckel produced a woodcut featuring a portrait of Nietzsche. The name of the group stems from a quote from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1885): “What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an OVER-GOING and a DOWN-GOING.”
Like the Nolde exhibition, the Brücke exhibition provides visitors with a nuanced historical viewpoint, adopting neither a one-sided “victim” perspective nor a glorification of the role of the avant-garde during this period. Both exhibitions represent a welcome change in the current perception of art, eschewing a primarily sensualist, playful or quasi-religious approach in favour of art appreciation based on a critical examination of contemporary history.
The group’s motto was: “Painting in nature, but not naturally.” Rather than depict nature directly, they sought to use it as inspiration for their spontaneous perceptions. They were especially influenced by the art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Heckel particularly admired Matthias Grünewald, the German Renaissance painter.
The principal merit of the Brücke Museum exhibition lies in the fact that it refrains from categorical judgements and instead objectively charts the behaviour and role played by the individual artists. The art of the Brücke painters and their attitude adopted in the Nazi period should neither be glorified nor simply condemned.
Following a nervous breakdown during World War I, Kirchner became heavily dependent on drugs. His self-portraits of these years— The Drinker and Self-portrait as Soldier (both 1915)—reflect his state of despair. He moved to Davos in Switzerland in 1917 and managed to wean himself there from morphine, staying until 1925. That year he returned to Germany for three months. He tried, in vain, to obtain a professorship and then went back to Switzerland. Although he enjoyed quite a high degree of recognition, he believed his art was inadequately appreciated. His painting style changed, becoming more abstract and with more emphasis on broad surfaces instead of lines.
He had no access to art supplies and only survived with the help of friends. To keep working somehow he used chalk and pastels to sketch simple motifs like vegetables or feathers. He also painted some watercolours.