Expressionism
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Expressionism in art was a movement that rejected traditional methods of representing objective reality. Instead, expressionists exaggerated and distorted aspects of the outside world in order to express and understand subjective moods and feelings. They believed, in all actuality, their landscapes and portraits were actually "mindscapes." Landmarks of this movement were violent colors and exaggerated lines that helped contain intense emotional expression.
During the early years of the 20th century, a German painter named Franz Marc and a painter named Wassily Kandinsky founded the movement in Munich, in part to provide exhibition opportunities for artists whose ideas were too advanced for the rigidly conservative German art world of the time. Marc and Kandinsky shared a dream of a "total art" in which ideas were not confined by the conventional boundaries of media. They also shared their commitment to a spiritually engaged art. This is the reason expressionism is so significant in the continuation of art.
Black Lines, Wassily Kandinsky, 1913, with its colored ovals tracked by animated brushstrokes, is among the first of Kandinsky's truly nonobjective paintings. The network of thin, tossed lines indicates a graphic, two-dimensional sensibility, while the floating, vibrantly hued forms suggest various spatial depths...