German Expressionism

Expressionism is an artistic style that is distinguished by an emphasis on the expression of emotion by the artist using the line and brush strokes or other constructional elements of the picture, sketch, or drawing. The image is not seen as separate from the artist's construction of it but rather as the expression of an artist's attitude or emotion.

In classical painting the artist is important because of his ability to represent objective reality. What the artist feels about his subject is only of secondary importance. What is important is the subject and what the viewer feels. One knows what interests Michelangelo because he draws men beautifully, even his women look like Amazons, more man that woman. But what one admires about him is not the expression of his sexuality but rather his ability to organize and present an objective view of his subject.

In expressionism the tables are turned and the viewer is taught to appreciate what the artist feels because seeing the marks and the way the subject is presented shows him how the artist felt about the subject. The artist pushes his own ego out in front of the subject of the picture or at the very least as co-equal to it.

The roots of expressionism go back a long way — especially in Viking and Scandinavian art where elements of expressionism can be traced back to the Middle Ages. In Italy expressionism in drawing was long accepted although not encouraged. In Western music it emerged like a thunderclap with Beethoven, where the musical form becomes secondary to the ego of the composer. In the visual arts it showed up in an explicit way in Postimpressionism with Edvard Münch, James Ensor, and Vincent Van Gogh.

In the early twentieth-century expressionism became the underlying tradition of most of the art movements and in that sense became meaningless. However groups like Die Brücke and the Fauves pushed expressionism into the foreground and took over the name. Whereas the Surrealists fought this blatant self-expression by sublimating it in an attempt to force the art into a more literary or reasoned framework. The primary method for doing this was use classical artistic technique on fantasy material thus using the structure, form, and content of the picture to carry the message. Dalí is a good example of this.

Explicit, in-your-face expressionism in the first quarter of the twentieth century was characteristic of the De Launays, Bonnard, and Soutine in France, and Schiele in Austria. But the expressionist tradition centered in the work of many German artists Kirchner, Kokoschka, Marc, and Meidner. In the period between the world wars, strong expressionism became the dominant art form in Germany. This gallery is devoted to German expressionist art from this period before the first world war. A follow-on gallery will carry German Expressionism through the period between the World Wars.

After World War II, Expressionism was transformed into Abstract Expressionism where the objective part of the art was diminished to the point where it was difficult or impossible to find — although in most cases it was still there. This was first an American art idiom and then grew to become a world wide one.

George Tappert was born in Berlin in 1880. From 1901 to 1903 he received art training at the Karlsruhe Academy In 1902 he began work as an assistant to Paul Shultze-Naumburg.

In 1905, Tappert moved to Berlin and then Worpswede where he helped found the Art School in Worpswede. His first individual exhibition took place in 1906 at the Galerie Paul Cassirer in Berlin. In 1908 Tappert exhibited with the Berlin Secession. And in 1910, Tappert co-founded the School for Visual and Applied Arts in Berlin and the Neue Sezession (with Pechstein and others). He was appointed “first executive officer” of the Neue Sezession and exhibited with them until 1914. In 1911, Tappert helped found the Jury Free Art Show, and in 1912 he began teaching in Berlin.

During the First World War, Tappert was drafted into the infantry where he served until 1918. Tappert was co-founder of the periodical Die Schöne Rarität, one of the founding members and organizers of the Novembergruppe, and a member of the Arbeitsrat für Kunst.

Tappert exhibited with the Novembergruppe from 1919 until 1929. In 1919, Tappert resumed teaching in Berlin at the Reimann School and the United State Schools for Fine and Applied Arts. In 1922, he was appointed to the national Office for Art Examiner where he served until the National Socialists came to power in 1933.

In 1933, while teaching at the United State Schools, Tappert was dragged from his class by Nazi students who demanded his dismissal. He was temporarily ousted and then reinstated the same year. In 1937, Tappert was dismissed from his teaching position and included as an example of “artistic decay” in the pamphlet “The Cleansing of the Temple of Art.” In 1937 Tappert’s works are removed from public collections in Germany.

After the destruction by bombing of his Berlin studio in 1944, Tappert decided to stop painting. After the war Tappert was appointed to rebuild the School for Art Education in Berlin.

He died in Berlin in 1957

Betty with Parrot
about 1912

Richard Gerstl destroyed his papers, so it is nearly impossible to ascertain real facts. What we know comes from what friends and relatives have related.

As a child, Gerstl decides to become an artist, which upsets his father. This is really a part of a pattern of rejecting authority which led to problems throughout his life. He had to leave the honourable "Piaristengymnasium" in Vienna due to disciplinary difficulties. In 1898 he was accepted to the "Wiener Akademie". However his radical opinions regarding artistic style (he categorically rejected the secessionistic way of painting) rather irritates his professor.

For five years Gerstl abandons his art studies. During this time he studies languages, philosophy and most of all music. He meets musicians like Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schönberg. He has many more musician friends than painters. The major exception is his friend the painter Viktor Hammer.

Hammer makes it possible for him to join the special art school of Heinrich Lefler — but his academic career ends when Gerstl refuses to take part in a parade to honor Emperor Franz Josef (because Gerstl feels political demonstration: "unworthy for an artist").

Such dismissals and failures (promped primarily by his own resistance to authority) lead to what other people see as a self-centered attitude. He distains artists who are currently popular; whereas he is convinced that his own work is superior. However his work does not please the public and he feels, rightly, that Vienna rejected him.

Self with Carnation
1912
Institute of the Arts
Detroit, MI, US

Self as a Soldier
1914
Staatsgalerie
Stuttgart, Germany