Why Expressionist artists were rebels?

Rebels of a new generation

Expressionist artists found inspiration in the Fauve play with color and the Symbolist dark themes. However, they did not view favorably all their predecessors. In fact, one could view Expressionist art as a response to the popular and mainstream art movement of the previous generation: Impressionism. It’s easy to find harmony, beauty and peace in Impressionist artworks, all of which are absent in Expressionism. For the Impressionist, color was a visual instrument, but for the Fauves and the Expressionists it was an emotional instrument. The Impressionist captures a particular moment in time, but the Expressionist cares to capture only feelings, most of which were intensely negative.

Life was cruel for most of the Expressionist artists and it continued to be so even to their last breaths. Eventually when the Nazis took over Germany, the cradle of Expressionism, they suppressed it as a degenerate art. In 1937, they destroyed hundreds of works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, one of the founders of the art movement. The following year, he committed suicide. Van Gogh was known to be mentally unstable and also committed suicide. Edvard Munch, who lived a long, successful life said: “For as long as I can remember, I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety.” He endured a nervous breakdown in 1909. Otto Dix was injured several times during his 3-year service during the World War and eventually was discharged. He suffered from nightmares revisiting the carnage he witnessed for the rest of his life. Franz Marc struggled with depression for several years. As his luck would have it, he would be enlisted in the War, and during one of its battles he received an injury to the head killing him instantly at the age of 36 in 1916.