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This chapter explores the rich mixture of ideas, debates, influences and sources that contributed to the way Expressionism developed in Germany. It also introduces the two key groups of pre-war Expressionism; Die Brücke in Dresden and Der Blaue Reiter in Munich. Art in late nineteenth-century Wilhelmine Germany was dominated by professional institutions, such as the Academy, and by artistic conventions, such as the emphasis on historical and literary subjects as those most worthy for public exhibition.

Tram in Dresden

1909

Oil on canvas, 70 × 78.5 cm

Private collection

The mixture of intricate realism, patriotism and cosy sentimentality in Anton von Werner’s Im Etappenquartier vor Paris (In a Billet Outside Paris) exemplifies good “official” taste in the 1890s. As soon as it had been completed it was bought for the Nationalgalerie. The painting shows a comradely group of soldiers relaxing to the strains of a Lied by Schumann, Das Meer erglänzte weit hinaus, played and sung by two lancers. The setting is a requisitioned chateau just outside Versailles during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71.

Tavern

1909

Oil on canvas, 71 × 81 cm

The Saint-Louis Art Museum

Saint-Louis (Missouri)

Their bluff manliness – all muddy boots and ruddy cheeks – and wholesome love of German Kultur is very deliberately contrasted with the effete rococo fussiness of French Zivilisation in their surroundings. Von Werner was director of the Berlin Academy and the most powerful figure in the institutional German art world at the time. He was also the favourite of Kaiser Wilhelm II, himself notoriously opinionated, conservative and outspoken in his views on art. All the more shocking, then, was the work sprung on an unsuspecting public at the newly-opened headquarters of the conservative Verein Berliner Künstler (Union of Berlin Artists) in 1892.

Young Girl under a Japanese Parasol

1909

Oil on canvas, 92 × 80 cm

Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf

It was by a Norwegian artist then still unknown in Germany, but who would inspire many Expressionists in the decades to follow – Edvard Munch. He had been invited to exhibit and arrived with fifty-five works, including one or more versions of The Kiss. This image re-surfaced many times in Munch’s oeuvre. For him, it was connected to the idea of the destructiveness of passion. He meant this not in terms of its potential for social disgrace, but more profoundly: a woman’s passion had the power to enslave men, arouse jealousy and – here almost literally – eat into the strength of the individual.

Naked Dancers

1909

Woodcut, 35 × 57.3 cm

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

When Erich Heckel met Munch in 1907, Munch offered the young German artist his Strindbergian view of women: “Das Weib ist wie Feuer, wärmend und verzehrend.” (“Woman is like fire, warming and consuming”.) If we try to imagine the effect images like Munch’s had on the conservative “establishment,” we can also understand something of the sexual insecurities of the age. Critics scorned Munch’s pallid colours, likening them to a housepainter’s undercoat.

Naked Couple on a Sofa

1909

Woodcut in black on brown card, 65.5 × 48 cm

Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

But more than considerations of technique, it was the subjects of Munch’s work that offended conservative sensibilities. The writer, friend and biographer of Munch, Stanislaw Przybyszewski, articulated the most unsettling aspect of The Kiss when he noted of the figures that:

“We see two human figures, each of the two faces melting into the other. Not a single recognisable facial feature remains: all we see is that point where they melt, a point that looks like a huge ear, rendered deaf by the ecstasy of the blood. It looks like a pool of molten flesh: there’s something hideous in it.”

Couple in Love

1909

Indian ink and brushwork, 44 × 32 cm

Brücke-Museum, Berlin

To the cultured men of the Verein, with their taste for heroic battle scenes and history painting, The Kiss, along with Munch’s other deeply introspective syntheses of the taboos of sex, death and intense emotion, was anathema. Together with the howls of protest from the press, it came as no surprise that the exhibition was closed after just one week. Paradoxically, the scandal did more for Munch’s career than any other event. In fact, it made his name in Berlin almost overnight. Munch wrote a letter home from Berlin to Norway:

Man and Wife

1908

Black and coloured chalk, 88.5 × 68.5 cm

Brücke-Museum, Berlin

“I could hardly have received better advertising… People came long distances to see the exhibition… I’ve never had such enjoyable days. It’s incredible that anything as innocent as art can create such furore. You asked me whether it has made me nervous. I’ve gained six pounds and have never felt better.”

The incident had far-reaching ramifications. It caused a rift between liberal and conservative members of the Verein that ultimately led to the foundation of the more progressive Berlin Secession.

Two Naked Women

1909

Chalk, 88.5 × 68.5 cm

Brücke-Museum, Berlin

A decade later, Munch was to become a rich source of inspiration for Expressionist artists as they explored ways of giving form to subjective perception and emotional states, rather than mimesis and anecdote.

The tension between cosmopolitan modernity and indigenous nature was an important political factor in debates around Germany’s artistic heritage and future. The concept of “German Art” was controversial before, during and after the era of Expressionism. But it was an especially contested issue in Wilhelmine Germany – from unification in 1871 until the empire’s collapse in 1918.