Die Brücke
Founded in 1905 and considered the starting point of the Expressionist movement, Die Brücke (The Bridge) brought together a group of artists who met as students at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden, without any formal art training. Inspired by a Bohemian lifestyle, the group shared a studio and communal spaces dedicated to socialising, entertainment and all kinds of gatherings. Its main objective was to create an art capable of bridging past, present and future. Die Brücke drew on Germany’s craft traditions, rediscovering techniques such as woodcut and printmaking, while also looking to Symbolism, Primitivism and Fauvism for its raw textures, hyper saturated colours and fragmented lines. The movement is often regarded as one of the two pillars of German Expressionism, in contrast to Der Blaue Reiter, which leaned more towards abstract landscapes. Its founders included Fritz Bleyl, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt Rottluff, with other significant members such as Otto Mueller and Emil Nolde, who joined the group later.