"Expressionism" is a theory of art composition or theatric direction in which subjective feeling,
rather than objective observation, is represented symbolically in form (shape, colour, contrast) and subject matter. Expressionism is a symbolic representation of the artist's state of mind, rather than of events, places, or things. In Germany, it developed into an anguished style which tended to explore the darker sides of the psyche. It was a development which was stylistically and thematically parallel to Anglo-American
Modernism, as well as to French Fauvism, and the Austrian Expressionism of Gustav Klimt and Egon
Schiele.
German Expressionism was a movement in theatre and the graphic arts which flourished in Germany between the turn of the twentieth century to the rise of the Nazis, when Hitler declared Der Expressionismus to be entartete ("degenerate") and began a campaign to harass and smear the Expressionists. A reaction against the artificial aristocracy and nature-worship of neo-Romanticism, Expressionism consisted of several distinct schools and movements.
The first phase, a movement called Die Brücke ("The Bridge"), was founded by four architecture students in Dresden in 1905. They adopted their name to indicate that they weren't interested in developing a particular style, but that they wanted to serve as a bridge between the styles of the past and the styles of the future. It was founded by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (who proposed the name "Die Brücke"), Erich Heckel, Ernst Kirchner, and Fritz Bleyl. They used garish colours and heavy, jagged outlines to convey alienation
and violence. They also revived the neglected art of the woodcut, which also lends itself to very heavy,
black lines. They preferred landscapes, nudes, and portraits of bizarre figures like circus performers, though they also did self-portraits. They drew their inspiration from van Gogh and Paul Gaugin, but especially from Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (who is himself sometimes identified as a "German Expressionist"). Other important members included Emil Nolde, Kies van Dongen, and Max Beckmann.
The second phase, named Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider") after a painting by their member Wassily Kandinsky, was formed in 1911 in Munich. One of their primary goals was to express spirituality with art. Rather than focusing on emotionally-charged subject matter, the members of Der Blaue Reiter preferred to combine abstract shapes and colour with the portrayal of a subject. Paul Klee was their other most famous member, but others included Franz Marc, August Macke, Gabriele Münter, Alexei Jawlensky, and Heinrich Campendonk.
The final phase of German Expressionism, often identified as a movement of its own, was Neue Sachlichkeit, or "Neo-Realism." This movement, which arose in the aftermath of the first World War and is associated with Otto Dix, George Grosz, Max Beckmann and Christian Schad, used the portrayal of troubling scenes in gritty detail in order to make cynical socio-political commentary. This is the movement
which really set the stage for Expressionist cinema.
Expressionism also made an important impact on theatre. The first really Expressionist play, Johannes Reinhard Sorge's Bettler ("Beggar"), appeared in 1912. Other important Expressionist playwrights included Walter Hasenclever, Paul Kornfeld, Fritz von Unruh, Georg Kaiser, Carl Sternheim, and Ernst Toller, who wrote Die Maschinenstürmer ("The Machine-Wreckers," 1922). Expressionist theatre tended to use strong contrasts in lighting, angular and clearly artificial sets, and stylized acting to convey anguish and mental instability.
These formulas and themes translated well into the monochrome medium of film, and German
Expressionism was one of the first artistic movements in film and the precursor of film noir. The earliest
example of classic German Expressionist film is The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, directed by Robert
Wiene and starring Werner Krauss as the title character, a villainous sideshow hypnotist, and Conrad Veidt
as his entranced tool of murder, Cesare. The single most recognized German Expressionist film is Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Graues ("A Symphony of Horrors" – 1922), directed by FW Murnau and starring "Max Shreck" (or "Max Fear") as the rat-like vampire, Count Orlock. Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926) is set in a dystopia in which a disenfranchised underclass works to support a gleaming over-city, whose inhabitants control the workers by replacing their leaders with robot shills. Lang also directed M (1931), which follows the efforts of criminals to find a serial child rapist and murderer (played by Peter Lorre) so that the police won't start cracking down on their own enterprises. Other German Expressionist directors included Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak, and Edward G. Ulmer.
When Hitler came to power, many Expressionist directors fled to the US, where they became an important influence on Hollywood. Orson Welles (Citizen Kane – 1941), John Huston (The Maltese
Falcon – 1941, The Asphalt Jungle – 1950), and Charles Laughton (The Night of the Hunter – 1955) all took cues from the Expressionists, and the Expressionists themselves often went on to direct film noir pieces of their own.