Expressionism
Born at the beginning of the twentieth century, Expressionism was a broad and multifaceted movement emerging from different German cities and soon spreading across Europe. Its main purpose was to shift the role of art from the mere depiction of visual objects or a reflection of reality to the expression of the artist’s inner feelings and personal perception of the world. Combined with the widespread social anxieties of the early decades, this led Expressionism to rely on bold and contrasting colours, decisive brushstrokes and shapes that conveyed an implied sense of motion, such as swirls or dynamic trajectories. Under the same Expressionist umbrella were included artists such as Kirchner, Kandinsky, Klee, Klimt, Kokoschka and Schiele. Within the movement, several groups formed over time, including Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke, and its impact was strong enough to generate a second wave in the 1980s known as Neo‑Expressionism. Many other movements were related to Expressionism in different ways, including Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity, which emerged as a direct reaction to it, and Abstract Expressionism, which inherited from it a sense of spirituality and the value of non‑representational art.