On the topic “Expressionism in world art. Foreign literature of the 20th century
expressionism literature andreev
It is important to emphasize that expressionism was not institutionalized as an independent artistic movement and was manifested through the worldview of the creator, through a certain style and poetics that arose within different movements, making their boundaries permeable and conditional. Thus, within the framework of realism, the expressionism of Leonid Andreev was born, the works of Andrei Bely stood out in the symbolist direction, among the books of the Acmeists, the poetry collections of Mikhail Zenkevich and Vladimir Narbut stood out, and among the futurists, the “screaming-lipped Zarathustra” Vladimir Mayakovsky came close to expressionism. The thematic and style-forming features characteristic of expressionism were embodied in the activities of a number of groups (expressionists I. Sokolova, Moscow Parnassus, Fuists, emotionalists) and in the work of individual authors at different stages of their evolution, sometimes in single works.
The depth and complexity of the processes that took place simultaneously and in different directions in Russian literature of the 1900-1920s was expressed in an intensive search for ways and means of updating the artistic language for an ever closer connection with modernity. The need to be modern was felt more acutely than ever by realist writers, symbolists, and those who wanted to throw them off the “steamboat of modernity.” Russian literature showed not only interest in the everyday life of man and society (political, religious, family life), but also sought to intervene in it
3. Leonimd Nikolamevich Andremev (August 9 (21), 1871, Orel, Russian Empire-- September 12, 1919, Neivola, Finland) - Russian writer. Representative Silver Age Russian literature. Considered the founder of Russian expressionism.
The first works of Leonid Andreev, largely under the influence of the disastrous conditions in which the writer then found himself, are imbued with a critical analysis of the modern world (“Bargamot and Garaska”, “City”). However, back in early period The writer’s creative work revealed his main motives: extreme skepticism, disbelief in the human mind (“The Wall”, “The Life of Basil of Thebes”), and a passion for spiritualism and religion arises (“Judas Iscariot”). The stories “The Governor”, “Ivan Ivanovich” and the play “To the Stars” reflect the writer’s sympathy for the revolution. However, after the start of the reaction in 1907, Leonid Andreev abandoned all revolutionary views, believing that a revolt of the masses could only lead to great casualties and great suffering (see “The Story of the Seven Hanged Men”). In his story “Red Laughter,” Andreev painted a picture of the horrors of modern war (a reaction to the Russo-Japanese War of 1905). The dissatisfaction of his heroes with the surrounding world and order invariably results in passivity or anarchic rebellion. The writer's dying writings are imbued with depression and the idea of the triumph of irrational forces.
Despite the pathetic mood of his works, Andreev’s literary language, assertive and expressive, with emphasized symbolism, met with a wide response in the artistic and intellectual circles of pre-revolutionary Russia. Maxim Gorky, Roerich, Repin, Blok, Chekhov and many others left positive reviews about Andreev. Andreev’s works are distinguished by sharp contrasts, unexpected turns plot, combined with the schematic simplicity of the syllable. Leonid Andreev is recognized as a bright writer of the Silver Age of Russian literature.
An extraordinary avant-garde movement, expressionism, originates in the mid-90s of the 19th century. The ancestor of the term is considered to be the founder of the magazine “Sturm” - H. Walden.
Researchers of expressionism believe that it was expressed most clearly in literature. Although expressionism was no less colorful in sculpture, graphics and painting.
New style and new world order
With changes in the social and social order of the early 20th century, a new direction in art, theatrical life and music emerged. Expressionism in literature was not long in coming. The definition of this direction did not work out. But literary scholars explain expressionism as a large array of multidirectional courses and trends, developing within the framework of the modernist trend in European countries at the beginning of the last century.
When talking about expressionism, they almost always mean the German movement. The highest point of this movement is called the fruits of the creativity of the “Prague School” (German-speaking). It included K. Capek, P. Adler, L. Perutz, F. Kafka and others. Despite the great difference in the creative attitudes of these authors, they were connected by an interest in the situation of idiotically ridiculous claustrophobia, mystical, mysterious hallucinogenic dreams. In Russia, this direction was developed by L. Andreev and E. Zamyatin.
Many writers were inspired by romanticism or baroque. But expressionism in literature felt a particularly deep influence of German symbolism and French (especially Charles Baudelaire and A. Rimbaud). Examples from the works of any follower author show that attention to the realities of life occurs through the principles of philosophical existence. A well-known slogan of expressionist adherents is “Not a falling stone, but the law of gravity.”
The prophetic pathos inherent in Georg Heim became a recognizable typical feature of the beginning of expressionism as a movement. His readers in the poems “A great dying is coming...” and “War” discerned a prophetic prediction of the coming catastrophe in Europe.
The Austrian exponent of expressionism with a very small poetic heritage had a huge impact on all German-language poetry. Trakl's poems contained symbolically complicated images, tragedy in connection with the collapse of the world order, and deep emotional richness.
The dawn of expressionism occurred in 1914-1924. These were Franz Werfel, Albert Ehrenstein, Gottfried Benn and other authors who were convinced of strong pacifist convictions by colossal losses at the fronts. This tendency is particularly evident in the works of Kurt Hiller. Poetic expressionism in literature, the main features of which quickly captured drama and prose, resulted in the famous anthology “Twilight of Humanity,” which was published in 1919.
New philosophy
The main philosophical and aesthetic idea of the followers of the Expressionists was borrowed from “Ideal Essences” - the theory of knowledge and on the recognition of intuition as the “navel of the earth” by A. Bergson in his system of “life” breakthrough. It is believed that this system is capable of overcoming the rigidity of philosophical matter in the unstoppable flow of evolution.
That is why expressionism in literature manifests itself as the perception of non-fictional reality as “objective appearance.”
The expression “Objective appearance” came from the classic works of German philosophy and meant perception reality with cartographic accuracy. Therefore, in order to find ourselves in the world of “ideal essences,” we must again contrast the spiritual with the material.
This idea is very similar to the ideological thought of the symbolists, while expressionism in literature is oriented towards Bergsonian intuitionism, and therefore seeks the meaning of existence in life and the irrational. A life breakthrough and a deep feeling at the level of intuition are declared to be the most important weapon in getting closer to spiritual cosmic reality. At the same time, the expressionists argued that the material world (that is, the external world) disappears in personal ecstasy and the solution to the centuries-old “mystery” of existence becomes incredibly close.
Expressionism in the literature of the 20th century is clearly different from the movements of surrealism or cubism, which developed almost in parallel. Pathetics, moreover, social-critical, makes the difference between the works of the Expressionists beneficial. They are full of protests against the stratification of society into social strata and wars, against the suppression of the human personality by public institutions and social ones. Sometimes expressionist authors effectively depicted the image of a revolutionary hero, thereby showing rebellious sentiments expressing a mystical, terrible horror of the insurmountable confusion of existence.
The crisis of the world order as being in the works of the Expressionists expressed itself as the main link of the apocalypse, which, moving at great speed, promises to devour both humanity and nature.
Ideological origins
Expressionism in literature highlights the demand for a prophecy of a universal nature. This is precisely what requires the isolation of style: it is necessary to teach, call and declare. Only in this way, having gotten rid of pragmatic morality and stereotypes, did the adherents of expressionism try to release a riot of fantasy in every person, deepen sensitivity and increase the attraction to everything secret.
Maybe that's why expressionism began with the unification of a group of artists.
Cultural historians believe that the year of birth of expressionism is 1905. It was this year that a union of like-minded people took place in Dresden, Germany, calling themselves the “Bridge” group. Under her leadership, student architects came together: Otto Müller, Erich Heckel, Ernst Kirchner, Emil Nolde and others. And by the beginning of 1911, the legendary group “Blue Rider” made its presence known. It included influential artists of the early twentieth century: August Macke, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and others. The group published an almanac of the same name since March 1912, in which it talked about the latest creative attempts new school, formulated goals and set tasks for her direction.
Representatives of expressionism in literature gathered around the magazine “Action” (“Action”). The first issue was published in Berlin at the beginning of 1911. It was attended by poets and as yet unknown playwrights, but already bright rebels of this trend: E. Toller, L. Frank, I. Becher and others.
The features of expressionism were most colorfully manifested in German, Austrian and Russian literature. The French Expressionists are represented by the poet Pierre Garnier.
Expressionist poet
The poet of this direction got the function of “Orpheus”. That is, he must be a magician who, struggling with the disobedience of bone matter, comes to the inner true essence what's happening. The main thing for the poet is the essence that appeared initially, and not the real phenomenon itself.
A poet is the highest caste, the highest class. He should not participate in the “affairs of the crowd.” Yes, both pragmatism and unprincipledness should be completely absent from him. That is why, as the founders of expressionism believed, it is easy for a poet to achieve the universal, addictive vibration of “ideal essences.”
Adherents of expressionism call the exclusive cult of the deified act of creativity the only true way to modify the world of matter in order to subjugate it.
It follows from this that truth stands above beauty. The secret, intimate knowledge of the Expressionists is clothed in figures with explosive expansiveness, which is created by the mind as if in a state of alcoholic intoxication or hallucination.
Creative ecstasy
To create for an adherent of this direction is to create masterpieces in a state of intense subjectivity, which is based on a state of ecstasy, improvisation and the poet’s changeable mood.
Expressionism in literature is not observation, it is a tireless and restless imagination, it is not the contemplation of an object, but an ecstatic state of seeing images.
The German expressionist, his theorist and one of the leaders, Casimir Edschmid, believed that a real poet depicts and does not reflect reality. Therefore, as a consequence, literary works in the style of expressionism, they are the result of a heartfelt impulse and an object for the aesthetic pleasure of the soul. Expressionists do not burden themselves with concern for the sophistication of the expressed form.
The ideological value of language artistic expression among the Expressionists is distortion, and often grotesquery, which appears as a result of wild hyperbolism and a constant battle with resistant matter. Such distortion not only deforms the external features of the world. It adds shock value and amazes with the grotesqueness of the created images.
And here it becomes clear that the main goal of expressionism is the reconstruction of human community and the achievement of unity with the Universe.
"Expressionist decade" in German-language literature
In Germany, as in the rest of Europe, expressionism emerged after the violent upheavals in the social sphere that rocked the country in the first decade of the last century. In German culture and literature, expressionism was the brightest phenomenon from the 10th to the 20th century.
Expressionism in German literature was the response of the intelligentsia to the problems exposed by the First World War, the November Revolutionary Movement in Germany and the overthrow of the Tsarist regime in Russia in October. The old world was destroyed, and a new one appeared on its ruins. The writers, before whose eyes this transformation took place, acutely felt the inconsistency of the existing order and at the same time the wretchedness of the new one and the impracticability of any progress in the new society.
German expressionism had a bright, rebellious, anti-bourgeois character. But at the same time, revealing the imperfections of the capitalist system, the expressionists revealed a completely unclear, abstract and absurd socio-political program proposed in return, capable of reviving the spirit of humanity.
Not fully understanding the ideology of the proletariat, the expressionists believed in the coming end of the world order. The death of humanity and the coming catastrophe - central themes works of expressionists from the period of the beginning of the First World War. This can be seen especially clearly in the lyrics of G. Trakl, G. Heim and F. Werfel. J. Van Goddis responded to the events taking place in the country and the world with the poem “The End of the World.” And even satirical works show the full drama of the situation (K. Kraus “ Last days humanity").
The aesthetic ideals of expressionism brought under their wing authors very different in artistic style, tastes and political principles: from F. Wolf and J. Becher, who accepted the ideology of the revolutionary restructuring of society, to G. Jost, who a little later became a poet at the court of the Third Reich.
- synonymous with expressionism
Franz Kafka is rightly called synonymous with expressionism. His conviction that a person lives in a world that is absolutely hostile to him, the human essence cannot overcome the institutions opposing it, and, therefore, there is no possibility of achieving happiness, is the main idea of expressionism in the literary environment.
The writer believes that the individual has no reason to be optimistic and, perhaps, therefore has no life prospects. However, in his works, Kafka sought to find something unchanging: “light” or “indestructible.”
The author of the famous “Trial” was called the poet of chaos. The world around him was frighteningly scary. Franz Kafka feared the forces of nature that humanity already possessed. His confusion and fear are easy to understand: people, having subjugated nature, could not sort out the relationships among themselves. In addition, they fought, killed each other, destroyed villages and countries and did not allow each other to be happy.
Almost 35 centuries of civilization separate the author of the myths of the twentieth century from the era of myths of the birth of the world. Kafka's myths are filled with horror, despair and hopelessness. The fate of a person no longer belongs to the individual himself, but to some otherworldly force, and it is easily separated from the person himself.
Man, the writer believes, is a social creature (it cannot be otherwise), but it is the structure of existence formed by society that completely distorts the human essence.
Expressionism in the literature of the 20th century, in the person of Kafka, recognizes and recognizes the insecurity and frailty of man from the social institutions formed by him and no longer controlled by him. The proof is obvious: a person suddenly falls under investigation (without the rights to protection!), or suddenly “strange” people, led by obscure, and therefore dark, ignorant forces, begin to take an interest in him. A person, under the influence of social institutions, quite easily feels his lack of rights, and then for the rest of his existence he makes unsuccessful attempts to gain permission to live and be in this unjust world.
Kafka amazed with his gift of insight. This is especially clearly expressed in the work (published posthumously) “The Trial”. In it, the author foresees new madness of the twentieth century, monstrous in its destructive power. One of them is the problem of bureaucracy, which is gaining strength, like a thundercloud covering the entire sky, while the individual becomes a defenseless, invisible bug. A reality that is aggressively hostile completely destroys a person’s personality, and, consequently, the world is doomed.
The spirit of expressionism in Russia
The trend in European culture that developed in the first quarter of the twentieth century could not but affect Russian literature. The authors, who worked from 1850 to the end of the 1920s, responded sharply to bourgeois injustice and the social crisis of this era, which arose as a result of the First World War and subsequent reactionary coups.
What is expressionism in literature? In short, it's a rebellion. There was outrage against the dehumanization of society. It, along with a new statement about the existential value of the human spirit, was close in spirit, traditions and customs to native Russian literature. Her role as messiah in society was expressed through immortal works N.V. Gogol and F.M. Dostoevsky, through the stunning paintings of M.A. Vrubel and N.N. Ge, through V.F. Komissarzhevskaya and A.N., who enriched the whole world. Scriabin.
The great possibility of the emergence of Russian expressionism in the “Dream of a Funny Man” by F. Dostoevsky, “The Poem of Ecstasy” by A. Scriabin, and “The Red Flower” by V. Garshin is very clearly visible in the near future.
Russian expressionists were looking for universal integrity; in their works they sought to embody a “new man” with a new consciousness, thereby promoting the unity of the entire cultural and artistic society of Russia.
Literary scholars emphasize that expressionism did not take shape as an independent, separate movement. It only manifested itself through the isolation of poetics and stylization, which arose among various already established movements, thereby making their boundaries more transparent, and even conditional.
So, say, expressionism, born within the framework of realism, resulted in the works of Leonid Andreev, the works of Andrei Bely broke out of the symbolist direction, the Acmeists Mikhail Zenkevich and Vladimir Narbut released collections of poetic works with a vivid expressionist theme, and Vladimir Mayakovsky, being a futurist, also wrote in Expressionist style.
Expressionism style on Russian soil
For the first time in Russian, the word “expressionism” was “sounded” in Chekhov’s story “The Jumper”. The heroine made a mistake when she used “expressionists” instead of “impressionists.” Researchers of Russian expressionism believe that it is closely and in every possible way united with the expressionism of old Europe, which was formed on the basis of Austrian, but more German expressionism.
Chronologically, this movement in Russia arose much earlier and faded away much later than the “decade of expressionism” in German-language literature. Expressionism in Russian literature began with the publication of Leonid Andreev’s story “The Wall” in 1901, and ended with the performance of “Moscow Parnassus” and a group of emotionalists in 1925.
Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev - rebel of Russian expressionism
The new direction, which very quickly captured Europe, did not leave the Russian literary environment aside. The founding father of the expressionists in Russia is considered
In his first works, the author deeply and dramatically analyzes the reality around him. This can be seen very clearly in early works: “Garaska”, “Bargamot”, “City”. Already here you can trace the main motives of the writer’s work.
“The Life of Vasily of Fivey” and the story “The Wall” depict the author’s skepticism in the human mind and extreme skepticism. During his fascination with faith and spiritualism, Andreev wrote the famous “Judas Iscariot.”
After a fairly short period of time, the work of Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev takes a sharp turn. This is due to the beginning of the revolutionary movement in 1907. The writer reconsiders his views and understands that mass riots, apart from great torment and mass casualties, lead to nothing. These events are described in The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men.
The story “Red Laughter” continues to reveal the author’s views on events taking place in the state. The work describes the horrors of military operations based on the events of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. The heroes, dissatisfied with the established world order, are ready to start an anarchic rebellion, but they can just as easily fold and show passivity.
The writer's later works are imbued with the concept of the victory of otherworldly forces and deep depression.
Post scriptum
Formally, German expressionism came to naught by the mid-20s of the last century. However, he, like no other, had a significant influence on the literary traditions of the next generations.
1. Prerequisites for the origin of the term
2. General provisions
3. History
4. Expressionism in various art movements
5. Russian expressionism
6. Appendix 1 (Representatives of expressionism)
Prerequisites for the origin of the term
Although the term is widely used as a reference, in reality there was no specific artistic movement calling itself "expressionism." It is believed that expressionism originated in Germany, and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche played an important role in its formation, drawing attention to previously undeservedly forgotten movements in ancient art. In the book “The Birth of Tragedy or Hellenism and Pessimism” (1871), Nietzsche sets out his theory of dualism, the constant struggle between two types of aesthetic experience, two principles in ancient Greek art, which he calls Apollonian and Dionysian. Nietzsche argues with the entire German aesthetic tradition, which optimistically interpreted ancient Greek art with its bright, essentially Apollonian beginning. For the first time he talks about another Greece - tragic, intoxicated with mythology, Dionysian, and draws parallels with the destinies of Europe. The Apollonian principle represents order, harmony, calm artistry and gives rise to plastic arts (architecture, sculpture, dance, poetry), the Dionysian principle is intoxication, oblivion, chaos, ecstatic dissolution of identity in the mass, giving birth to non-plastic art (primarily music). The Apollonian principle opposes the Dionysian as the artificial opposes the natural, condemning everything excessive and disproportionate. However, these two principles are inseparable from each other and always act together. They fight, according to Nietzsche, in the artist, and both are always present in any work of art. Under the influence of Nietzsche's ideas, German (and after them other) artists and writers turn to the chaos of feelings, to what Nietzsche calls the Dionysian principle. In its most general form, the term "expressionism" refers to works in which strong emotions are expressed through artistic means, and this very expression of emotions, communication through emotions, becomes the main purpose of creating the work.
It is believed that the term “expressionism” itself was introduced by the Czech art historian Antonin Mateshek in 1910, as opposed to the term “impressionism”: “The expressionist desires, above all, to express himself...<Экспрессионист отрицает...>instant impression and builds more complex mental structures... Impressions and mental images pass through the human soul as through a filter that frees them from all superficial things to reveal their pure essence<...и>unite, condense into more general forms, the types that he<автор>rewrites them through simple formulas and symbols."
General provisions
Expressionism (from Latin expressio - expression), a direction that developed in European art and literature from approximately 1905 to the 1920s. It arose as a response to the most acute social crisis of the 1st quarter of the 20th century. (including the 1st World War and the subsequent revolutionary upheavals), became an expression of protest against the ugliness of modern bourgeois civilization. Social-critical pathos distinguishes many works of expressionism from the art of avant-garde movements that developed in parallel with it or immediately after it (cubism, surrealism). Protesting against the world war and social contrasts, against the dominance of things and the suppression of the individual by the social mechanism, and sometimes turning to the theme of revolutionary heroism, the masters of expressionism combined protest with the expression of mystical horror of the chaos of existence. The crisis of modern civilization was represented in the works of expressionism as one of the links in the apocalyptic catastrophe approaching nature and humanity. The term “expressionism” was first used in print in 1911 by H. Walden, the founder of the expressionist magazine “Der Sturm”.
The principle of an all-encompassing subjective interpretation of reality, which prevailed in expressionism over the world of primary sensory sensations (which formed the fundamental basis artistic image in impressionism), led to a tendency towards irrationality, heightened emotionality and fantastic grotesquery, often to the complete or partial destruction of the boundaries between the characters and the natural (or urban) landscape environment surrounding them. The principles of expressionism were most clearly revealed in the art of Germany and Austria.
Elementalism is characterized by the principle of an all-encompassing subjective interpretation of reality, which has prevailed over the world of primary sensory sensations, as was the case in the first modernist movement - impressionism. Hence the gravitation of expressionism towards abstraction, heightened and ecstatic, emphasized emotionality, mysticism, fantastic grotesque and tragedy.
The art of expressionism was inevitably socially oriented, as it developed against the backdrop of sharp socio-political changes, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the First World War.
However, it would be wrong to think that expressionism is only an art direction. Expressionism was an extreme expression of the very essence of the time, the quintessence of the ideology of the pre-war, war and first post-war years, when the entire culture was deformed before our eyes. Expressionism reflected this deformation of cultural values. Perhaps its main feature was that the object in it was subjected to a special aesthetic influence, as a result of which the effect of a characteristic expressionist deformation was achieved. The most important thing in the object was extremely sharpened, resulting in the effect of a specific expressionist distortion. We call the path that expressionism took logaedization, the essence of which is that the system is tightened to the limit, thereby demonstrating its absurdity.
There is an opinion that the phenomenon of expressionism was Freud's classical psychoanalysis. This is evidenced by the very pathos of the deformation of the original “Victorian” ideas about a happy and cloudless childhood of a person, which Freud turned into a nightmarish sexual drama. In the spirit of expressionism, the most in-depth look into human soul, in which there is nothing light; finally, the gloomy doctrine of the unconscious. Without a doubt, close attention to the phenomenon of dreams also links psychoanalysis with expressionism.
So, at the center of the artistic universe of expressionism is the tormented soullessness of the modern world, its contrasts of living and dead, spirit and flesh, “civilization” and “nature,” the material and spiritual heart of man. In expressionism, the “landscape of a shocked soul” appears as shocks to reality itself. The transformation of reality, for which many expressionists passionately called, had to begin with the transformation of human consciousness. The artistic consequence of this thesis was the equalization of the rights of the internal and external: the shock of the hero, the “landscape of the soul” were presented as shocks and transformations of reality. Expressionism did not involve exploring the complexity of life processes; many works were thought of as proclamations. The art of left-wing expressionism is essentially agitational: not a “many-faced”, full-blooded picture of reality (cognition) embodied in tactile images, but a sharpened expression of an idea important to the author, achieved through any exaggeration and conventions.
Expressionism set the global paradigm for the aesthetics of the twentieth century, the aesthetics of searching for the boundaries between fiction and illusion, text and reality. These searches were never successful because, most likely, such boundaries either do not exist at all, or there are as many of them as there are subjects who are searching for these boundaries. The problem was resolved in the philosophy and artistic practice of postmodernism
History of origin
Since the end of the 19th century. German culture has developed a special view of a work of art. It was believed that it should carry only the will of the creator, created “out of internal necessity,” which does not need comments or justifications. At the same time, a revaluation of aesthetic values took place. There was an interest in the works of Gothic masters, El Greco, Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The artistic merits of the exotic art of Africa, the Far East, and Oceania were rediscovered. All this was reflected in the formation of a new movement in art.
Expressionism is an attempt to show the inner world of a person, his experiences, as a rule, at the moment of extreme spiritual tension. The expressionists considered the French post-impressionists, the Swiss Ferdinand Hodler, the Norwegian Edvard Munch, and the Belgian James Ensor to be their predecessors. There were many contradictions in expressionism. Loud declarations about the birth of a new culture, it would seem, did not fit well with the equally fierce preaching of extreme individualism, with the rejection of reality for the sake of immersion in subjective experiences. And besides, the cult of individualism was combined with a constant desire to unite.
The first significant milestone in the history of expressionism is considered to be the emergence of the association “Bridge” (German: Bracke). In 1905, four architecture students from Dresden - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Fritz Bleil, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff created a kind of medieval guild commune - lived and worked together. The name “Bridge” was proposed by Schmidt-Rottluff, believing that it expresses the group’s desire to unite all new artistic movements, and in a deeper sense symbolizes its work - a “bridge” to the art of the future. In 1906, they were joined by Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, Fauvist Kees van Dongen and other artists.
Although the association appeared immediately after the performance of the Parisian Fauves at the Autumn Salon, representatives of the Bridge claimed that they acted independently. In Germany, as in France, the natural development of the visual arts led to a change in artistic methods. The expressionists also renounced chiaroscuro and the transfer of space. The surface of their canvases seems to have been treated with a rough brush without any care for grace. Artists were looking for new, aggressive images, trying to express anxiety and discomfort through painting. Color, the expressionists believed, has its own meaning, is capable of evoking certain emotions, and was attributed symbolic meaning.
The first exhibition of "Most" took place in 1906 in the premises of a lighting equipment factory. This and subsequent exhibitions were of little interest to the public. Only the 1910 exposition was provided with a catalogue. But since 1906, Most annually published so-called folders, each of which reproduced the work of one of the group members.
Gradually, the members of the "Bridge" moved to Berlin, which became the center of artistic life in Germany. Here they were exhibited in the gallery "Sturm" (German: "storm").
In 1913, Kirchner published “Chronicle of the artistic association “Bridge””. It provoked sharp disagreement from the rest of the “Bridge” members, who felt that the author had overestimated his own role in the group’s activities. As a result, the association officially ceased to exist. Meanwhile, for each of these artists, participation in the “Bridge” group turned out to be an important milestone in their creative biography.
The rapid rise of expressionism was determined by the rare correspondence of the new direction to the characteristic features of the era. Its heyday is short-lived. A little more than a decade has passed, and the direction has lost its former significance. However, in a short period of time, expressionism managed to declare itself a new world of colors, ideas, and images.
In the mid-900s - early 10s, expressionism entered German culture. Its heyday is short-lived. Expressionism is much stronger in German culture than in Austrian culture. For the first time after a long break, a new artistic movement arose in Germany itself, which had a significant influence on world art. The rapid rise of expressionism was determined by the rare correspondence of the new direction to the characteristic features of the era. The extreme, screaming contradictions of imperialist Germany in the pre-war years, then the war and the brewing revolutionary indignation, destroyed for millions of people the idea of \u200b\u200bthe inviolability of the existing order. The premonition of inevitable changes, the death of the old world, the birth of a new one became more and more clear.
Literary expressionism began with the work of several great poets - Elsa Lasker-Schüler (1876-1945), Ernst Stadler (1883-1914), Georg Heim (1887-1912), Gottfried Benn (1886-1956), Johannes Becher (1891-1958) .
The poetry of Georg Heim (collection “Eternal Day”, 1911, and “Umbra vitae”, 1912) did not know large forms. But even in small ones it was distinguished by its monumental epicness. Game sometimes saw the earth from an unimaginable height, crossed by rivers, along one of which the drowned Ophelia floated. On the eve of the World War, he depicted large cities falling to their knees (the poem “God of Cities”). He wrote about how crowds of people - humanity - stand motionless, having left their homes, on the streets and look in horror at the sky.
Even before the outbreak of the First World War, expressionist poetry developed techniques that were later widely developed - montage, dissolve, sudden “close-up”.
Thus, in the poem “Demons of the Cities,” Game wrote how huge black shadows slowly feel around the house behind the house and blow out the light on the streets. The backs of the houses bend under their weight. From here, from these heights, there is a rapid leap down: a woman in labor on a shaking bed, her bloody womb, a child born without a head... After the gloomy voids of the sky, the “lens” enlarges a barely noticeable point. The point is connected with the world.
It was expressionism that introduced into poetry what is commonly called “absolute metaphor.” These poets did not reflect reality in images - they created a second reality.
The poet draws connecting threads between the most distant objects and phenomena. What all these random details and images have in common is found in the higher sphere - the state in which the world was.
Not only van Goddis, but also the greatest expressionist poets - G. Heim, E. Stadler, G. Trakl - as if taking a drawing from an unusual object - the future, wrote in their poems about historical upheavals that had not yet occurred, including the world war, as if it had already taken place. But the power of expressionist poetry lies not only in prophecies. This poetry also prophesied where there was no mention of a future war. This art is highly characterized by a sense of the tragic conflict of existence. Love no longer seems like salvation, death like a peaceful sleep.
Landscape occupied a large place in early expressionist poetry. However, nature has ceased to be perceived as a reliable refuge for humans: it has been removed from the position of apparent isolation from the human world. “The sand has opened its mouth and can no longer,” wrote the poet and prose writer Albert Ehrenstein (1886-1950) during the First World War.
Under the influence of the upheavals of time, the expressionists keenly perceived the coexistence in nature of the living and the dead, the organic and the inorganic, the tragedy of their mutual transitions and collisions. This art seems to still hold in memory a certain initial state of the world. Expressionist artists are not interested in a detailed depiction of the subject. Often outlined in a thick and rough outline, the figures and things in their paintings are indicated as if in rough outline - with large strokes and bright spots of color. It was as if the bodies had not been cast forever into forms that were organic to them: they had not yet exhausted the possibilities of cardinal transformations.
The intensity of color in their literature and painting is deeply connected with the expressionists’ worldview. The colors, as in the children's drawings, seem to be something earlier than the form. In expressionist poetry, color often replaces the description of an object: it seems to precede concepts.
Movement was perceived as a natural state. It also implied shifts in history. The bourgeois world seemed frozen in immobility. The capitalist city that squeezed him threatened man with forced immobility. Injustice was the result of circumstances that paralyzed people.
The living often threatens to turn into motionless, material, dead. On the contrary, inanimate objects can heal, move, and tremble. “The houses vibrate under the whip... the cobblestones move in an imaginary calm,” wrote the poet Alfred Wolfenstein (1883-1945) in his poem “Cursed Youth.” There is no finality anywhere, no definite boundaries...
The world was perceived by the Expressionists both as dilapidated, outdated, decrepit, and as capable of renewal. This dual perception is noticeable even in the title of a representative anthology of expressionist lyrics published in 1919: “Menschheitsdämmerung”, which means either the sunset or the dawn before which humanity faces.
The conquest of expressionistic lyrics is considered to be poems about cities. The young expressionist Johannes Becher wrote a lot about cities. All representative anthologies of German poetry include Heim’s poems “Berlin”, “Demons of the City”, “Suburb”. Cities were depicted differently by the Expressionists than by naturalists, who were also attentive to urban life. The expressionists were not interested in urban life - they showed the expansion of the city into the sphere of human consciousness, inner life, psyche, and captured it as a landscape of the soul. This soul is sensitive to the pain and ulcers of time, and that is why in the expressionistic city wealth, splendor and poverty, poverty with its “basement face” (L. Rubiner) collide so sharply. In the cities of the Expressionists, one can hear grinding and clanging and there is no admiration for the power of technology. This movement is completely alien to the admiration for the “motorized century”, airplanes, balloons, airships, which was so characteristic of Italian futurism.
But the idea of man himself - this center of the universe - is far from unambiguous. Gottfried Benn's early expressionistic collections ("Morgue", 1912) provoke the reader's thought: a beautiful woman - but her body, like an inanimate object, lies on the table in the morgue ("The Negro's Bride"). Soul? But where to look for it in the weak body of an old woman, incapable of the simplest physiological functions (“Doctor”)? And although the vast majority of Expressionists passionately believed in straightening people, their optimism related to possibilities, not to current state man and humanity.
For the expressionists, war is primarily the moral decline of humanity. “Godless Years” is what A. Wolfenstein calls his 1914 collection of lyrics. Before art, which inscribed the word “Man” on its banner, there arose a picture of the obedient submission of millions to the order of mutual extermination. A person lost the right to think, was deprived of individuality.
The boundaries of expressionistic art expanded widely. But at the same time, exactly as much as the spirit of the time corresponded to the feelings of the writer. Expressionism often reflected important social sentiments (horror and disgust for war, revolutionary indignation), but sometimes, when some phenomena were just emerging, left-wing expressionist literature, which did not know how to extract something new from a patient study of life, did not catch them.
When considering the aesthetic positions of expressionism, one should pay attention to the fact that expressionism developed, first of all, in the process of repulsion. It is negation that forms the basis of the expressionist worldview. The emergence of the expressionist movement in German literature was due to the fact that the new generation of German poets and writers, who decisively declared themselves in the first decade of the 20th century, was not satisfied with the situation of relative stability in German culture. In their opinion, naturalists were never able to carry out the promised revolutionary changes in the field of culture and by the beginning of the century they were no longer able to say anything new in literature. The Expressionists sought to overcome this immobility, unproductivity of thought and action, which they perceived as spiritual stagnation and a general crisis of the intelligentsia. According to the theorists of expressionism, naturalistic art, neo-romanticism, impressionism, “Jugendstil” (as the “modern” style was called in German-speaking countries) are characterized by non-functionality and superficiality, which obscure the true essence of things. From the denial of previous literary traditions, from a conscious deviation from the direction that not only German, but all European literature XIX century, and with the opposition of his work to all existing artistic movements, first of all, naturalism and impressionism, and in poetry - symbolism and neo-romanticism, expressionism began.
The formation of expressionism as a movement began with two associations of artists: in 1905, the “Bridge” group arose in Dresden (Die Brticke, it included Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and later Emil Nolde, Otto Müller, Max Pechstein) , and in 1911 the group “The Blue Rider” (Der blaue Reiter, among the participants: Franz Marc, August Macke, Wassily Kandinsky, Lionel Feininger, Paul Klee) was created in Munich. Literary expressionism began with the work of several great poets: Else Lasker-Schüler (1976-1945), Ernst Stadler (1883-1914), Georg Heim (1887-1912), Gottfried Benn (1886-1956), Johannes Robert Becher (1891 - 1958) ), Georg Trakl (1887-1914). The unification of poets and writers who proclaimed themselves expressionists took place around two literary magazines - “Sturm” (Der Sturm, 1910-1932) and “Action” (Die Aktion, 1911 - 1933), which were in polemics with each other on the issue of the relationship of art and politicians, but often the same authors appeared on the pages of both publications.
Many theorists of expressionism saw its originality not so much in the novelty of the principles it proclaimed, but in a qualitatively new approach to all phenomena of reality, primarily social. M. Hübner, one of the most prominent propagandists of expressionism, presents its historical mission as follows: “Impressionism is a doctrine of style, while expressionism is the norm of our experiences, actions and, therefore, the basis of a whole worldview... Expressionism has a deeper meaning. It signifies an entire era. Its only equal opponent is naturalism. ...Expressionism is a sense of life communicated to man now, when the world has been turned into terrifying ruins, to create a new era, a new culture, a new prosperity.”
It should be noted that the expressionist artists themselves, in their attempts to theoretically comprehend characteristic features and the specifics of their method, they often depicted the process of forming the foundations of expressionism only as a process of repulsion from old principles (primarily from naturalistic and impressionistic), and not in the form of a dialectical struggle of opposites, but as an antinomic process, during which the old and the new were presented as antipodes. Also, many researchers prefer to reveal the essence of expressionism and highlight its main characteristic features through comparison, and more often by contrasting it with other artistic movements, considering this path the most successful. “Only the sum of negative features, the sum of dissimilarities makes it possible to isolate expressionism from the world literary and artistic process as something whole and unified,” says V. Toporov. However, this approach, as it seems to us, is not without one-sidedness: paying special attention to the differences between expressionism and others - traditional and modernist methods, it simultaneously leaves the moment of continuity in the shadows.
Even despite the Expressionists' decisive rejection of everything that previously existed in world art, it is necessary to recognize the existence of parallels between the Expressionists and some of their predecessors and contemporaries. In particular, the members of the “Bridge” and “Blue Rider” associations themselves found the origins of their creativity in the artistic traditions of other European countries, in the work of the Belgian James Ensor, the Norwegian Edvard Munch, and the Frenchman Vincent Van Gogh. They also recognized the great influence on their work of French artists of the late 19th century (Henri Matisse, Andre Derain, etc.), cubists Pablo Picasso and Robert Delaunay. Criticism has repeatedly emphasized the connection of expressionism with romanticism, with the aesthetics of the literary movement “Storm und Drang” (Sturm und Drang, 1770s). There are parallels between the expressionistic and naturalistic depiction of man. It is also said that there is something in common between the first collections of expressionist lyrics and the poetry of impressionism. Also, predecessors of the expressionists are seen in August Strindberg, Georg Büchner, Walt Whitman, Frank Wedekind.
It is impossible not to mention the great influence that they had on expressionism Slavic cultures and literature. Of course, first of all, this concerned Russian literature, in particular, the work of F. M. Dostoevsky and L. Andreev, who are also often called the predecessors of the expressionists. In addition, many researchers explain some features of the poetics of expressionism by the significant influence of the Slavic cultural area on it, which, for example, they write about in the preface to the collection of expressionist prose “Premonition and Breakthrough. Expressionist prose" (“Ahnung und Aufbruch. Expressionistische Prosa”, 1957) German writer and the publicist K. Otten, who points out the two most important circumstances of the emergence of German expressionism. The first circumstance is “Slavic-German origin, which explains the special depth of the fatal attitude towards the world found in Kafka, Musil and Trakl” TO And the second is the transfer of the “center of gravity” of German literature to the east, to the Czech-Austrian environment, from which came such prominent authors as Max Brod, Sigmund Freud, Karl Kraus, Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Werfel, Paul Adler and Stefan Zweig. The Croatian expressionist playwright J. Kulundzic wrote about the same thing back in 1921: “Russia and Germany, turning to the original forms of Eastern mysticism, created a new culture, a new art.”
For our research it will also be important to determine what forces of attraction and repulsion acted between expressionism and romanticism, as well as expressionism and naturalism, since it is the connection with the traditions and aesthetics of these two artistic movements that turns out to be one of the most pressing issues in the study of Slovak expressionism.
Expressionists, like the romantics, “are characterized by attention to the intuitive foundations of creativity, to myth as a holistic expression of the subconscious depths of man and the source of images of art, the rejection of plastic completeness and harmonious ordering of the internal and external in the art of the Renaissance and classicism, emphasizing dynamism and incompleteness , “openness” of artistic expression.” The expressionists and the romantics have a lot in common in their views on the nature of art: they are united by the recognition of the ideal essence of art, as well as consideration of the facts of art as the design of a universal spiritual sensation that owns the artist’s soul. The belief in the advantages of intuition over the intellect, the need for an irrational comprehension of reality, the tendency towards symbolization, the craving for conventional forms, fantasy, and the grotesque that manifested themselves in the works of the romantics are also found in the works of the expressionists.
However, there are many differences between expressionism and romanticism. Expressionists, unlike the Romantics, do not create new world ideals, dreams, but destroy the world of old illusions, do not create beautiful forms, but destroy them, deform the shell of things so that their essence can express itself. Moreover, if romanticism is characterized by a deep admiration for the beauty of the world, the desire to recreate it in its works, using a rather traditional form, then expressionism expresses a protest against reality, changing and breaking the usual proportions, shapes and outlines. The desire for lifelikeness, harmony and beauty, characteristic of the romantics, replaces the desire of the expressionists to shock the public, to make the reader, viewer or listener shudder, to awaken in him a feeling of indignation and horror at modern world. According to G. Nedoshivin, expressionism is characterized by “an organic aversion to any harmony, balance, spiritual and mental clarity, calmness and severity of forms.” When creating an image, expressionists are not guided by the principle of objective similarity and dissimilarity between the object and the image, but are based on their own feelings, on their attitude towards this object. As the English theorist J. Gooddon notes, “the artist himself determines the form, image, punctuation, syntax. Any rules and elements of writing can be deformed in the name of a goal.”
Despite the extraordinary interest in the human personality on the part of both the Romantics and the Expressionists, they, however, had different approaches to the depiction of a person: unlike the Romantics, the attention of the Expressionists was focused not on the individual personality, not on its unique features, but on the typical, generic, essential in it. The heroes of expressionism do not rise above the crowd, but drown, dissolve in it, sacrificing themselves to the common cause. It is expressionism that introduces a new hero into art - the man of the masses, the crowd. However, even such a hero feels helpless in the face of a formidable reality in an alienated world hostile to him. It's still the same " little man“, suppressed by the cruel conditions of existence, feeling his loneliness, powerlessness, but still trying to comprehend the law that weighs on him.
And yet, despite such significant differences between these two artistic movements, in connection with expressionism they often talk about the revival of romanticism on the basis of the culture of the 20th century, calling expressionism itself “to a certain extent the heir of romanticism,” “a form of neo-romantic reaction,” etc. .
Expressionism also has many similarities with the aesthetics of naturalism, although this artistic movement has more than once been subjected to serious criticism from the expressionists. In their opinion, naturalism only skims the surface of phenomena, not striving for the noumenal and remaining at the level of the phenomenal. In this sense, expressionism goes further, posing more general and absolute questions, which is dictated by its desire to restore the connection between private human existence and the life of all humanity and nature. The person himself is no longer considered completely dependent on the world, environment, circumstances, as was the case in naturalism, but the emphasis is on the internal motivations of his actions, on the variability of his internal state, which the expressionists begin to call “a breakthrough through facts.” Declaring creatively fruitless attempts to reproduce in art " living life", expressionism contrasts the principle of a believable depiction of reality with "emphasized grotesqueness of images, the cult of deformation in its most varied manifestations."
A fundamentally new view demonstrates expressionism on the role of the artist: this is no longer the “genius” of romanticism, creating according to the laws of beauty beautiful world ideal, contrasted with the world of base reality; and this is not a nature photographer, dispassionately copying facts, whose credo is to show, but not draw conclusions; he is a prophet, through whose lips life itself speaks, and sometimes shouts, revealing its secrets to him.
Thus, despite the declared decisive deviation of the new direction from all previous artistic traditions, the repulsion of expressionism from the past was not absolute: its connection with the aesthetics of romanticism and naturalism, as well as with modernist movements (symbolism, impressionism, Dadaism, surrealism and others) is undeniable. This circumstance is pointed out, for example, by A. Sörgel, noting that “expressionism was connected by thousands of threads with German soil, with the naturalistic school, with the entire cultural and historical development of the era.”
We find an interesting approach to the study of expressionism in the works of some researchers who focus on identifying the typological nature of expressionism and at the same time find its features in the practice of the distant past. An ahistorical consideration of the phenomenon of expressionism is inherent, for example, in the concepts of W. Worringer, K. Edschmid, M. Krell, M. Gübner, V. Kandinsky. They state its typological kinship with primitive art, Gothic and romanticism. This approach isolates the analyzed phenomenon from a specific historical framework, giving it the character of a timeless, eternally existing structure. Thus, K. Edschmid notes in his speeches: “Expressionism has always existed. There is no country in which it would not exist, no religion that would not create it in feverish excitement. There is no tribe that does not sing in expressionistic forms to an obscure deity. Created in great eras of powerful passions, nourished by the deep layers of life, expressionism was a universal style - it existed among the Assyrians, Persians, ancient Greeks, Egyptians, in Gothic, primitive art, and among old German artists.
Among primitive peoples, expressionism became an expression of fear and reverence for the deity embodied in limitless nature. It became a natural element in the works of masters whose souls were filled with creative power. It is in the dramatic ecstasy of Grunewald's paintings, in the lyrics of Christian chants, in the dynamics of Shakespeare's plays, in the static nature of Strindberg's plays, in that inexorability that is inherent in even the most affectionate Chinese fairy tales. Nowadays it has embraced an entire generation."
Unlike the works of K. Edschmid, in the studies of W. Worringer, J. Keim, W. Zokel, the timelessness of expressionism does not appear as something initially present in the artist’s soul. They attempt to trace the development of artistic consciousness and emphasize the pattern of the appearance of expressionism in certain periods of time, which is explained as a return to lost values. “Considered purely abstractly, the influx of romantic-mystical ideas is nothing more than a reaction to the previous period of the most concrete worldview,” writes Yu. Kaim. Another German researcher W. Sokel describes the emergence of expressionism at the beginning of the 20th century as follows: “At the end of the first decade of the 20th century in Western art and literature, a comprehensive revolution took place, which consisted in the most direct connection with the scientific revolutions of that era. ...But no matter how shocking and devastating this birth was new era, it was not something completely new - it was the culmination of a development that took place throughout the 19th century, and whose roots go back to even more ancient eras.”
Despite the variety of different theories and concepts about expressionism, in general we are forced to agree with N. Pestova, who believes that until now “expressionism has been understood and comprehended one-sidedly as a “cry”, as the pathos of destruction or utopia, and not as a complex artistic embodiment global alienation of man." As the researcher notes in her monograph “The Lyrics of German Expressionism: Profiles of Foreignness,” “Literary expressionism appears to be a broader concept than style, since its poetics clearly goes beyond a simple set of poetic techniques and is formed under the strong influence of more global intellectual projects of the beginning.” century"
