ArtPage on Expression and Expressionism

expression and expressionism - (with a small e — the more general sense) A quality of inner experience, the emotions of the artist (expressive qualities) communicated through emphasis and distortion, which can be found in artworks of any period.

Examples:

Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa (La Joconde) (1479 - d. before 1550), c. 1503-1506, oil on wood panel, 77 x 53 cm, Louvre. This most famous of paintings is important for many reasons, not least of which is the subject's mysterious expression. Contibuting to this effect is Leonardo's use of sfumato, which seems to suggest that we are observing this face as its expression is changing. This portrait also presents early examples of aerial perspective and landscape painting. See Renaissance.

Charles Lebrun (French, 1619-1690), Expressions of the Spirit's Passions, c. 1663, engraving?. See Baroque and Poussinisme.

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (German, 1736-1783), The Beaked, 1770, alabaster bust, height 43 cm, Austrian State Gallery, Vienna. Profile view. Many of Messerschmidt's sixty-nine nearly life-size "character heads" bear very strong facial expressions -- grimaces or smiles, outstretched tongues, widely opened mouths, upraised brows, etc., each appearing to demonstrate an extreme use of facial muscles. Their creation was at least partly a reflection of the scientific interest in facial expressions in vogue in Europe at the time.

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, Ill-Humored Man, 1778, lead bust, Louvre. This bust was purchased by the Louvre in 2005 for $4.8 million.

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746-1828), The Forge, between c. 1815 and 1820, oil on canvas, 71 1/2 x 49 1/4 inches (181.6 x 125.1 cm), Frick Collection, NY.

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Saturn Devouring one of his Sons, mural transferred to canvas, (146 x 83 cm), Prado Museum, Madrid. Also see grotesque and Romanticism.

Léopold Boilly (French, 1761-1845), Grimacing Man (Self-Portrait), c. 1822-23, conté crayons on paper. This is an example of an expressive work in a very literal way! See caricature, Neoclassicism, and self-portrait.

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890), The Night Café, September 1888 (Arles), oil on canvas, 27 1/2 x 39 inches (70 x 89 cm), Yale University Art Gallery, F 463. Of his Night Café, van Gogh said: "I have tried to express with red and green the terrible passions of human nature." Also see Post-Impressionism.

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890), The Starry Night, June 1889 (Saint Rémy), oil on canvas, 29 x 36 1/4 inches (72 x 92 cm), Museum of Modern Art, New York, F 612. See nocturne.

Walter Richard Sickert (English, 1860-1942), Ennui, c. 1914, oil on canvas, 152.4 x 112.4 cm, Tate Gallery, London. See English art and ennui.

Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863-1944), The Sick Child, 1907, oil on canvas, 118.7 x 121.0 cm, Tate Gallery, London.

Charles Burchfield (American, 1893-1967), Orion in December, 1959, watercolor and pencil on paper,39 7/8 x 32 7/8 inches (101.2 x 83.4 cm), National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC.

Chaïm Soutine (Russian-French, 1893-1943), The Bellhop, 1928, oil on canvas, 98 x 80.5 cm, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris. See Jewish art.

American, Albert Einstein, photograph.

Francis Bacon, Three Figures in a Room, 1964, oil on canvas, 198 x 441 cm, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris. See triptych.

Francis Bacon, Portrait of Michel Leiris, 1976, oil on canvas, 34 x 29 cm, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris.

Francis Bacon, Study of the Human Body, 1981-1982, oil and pastel on canvas, 198 x 147.5 cm, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris.

"What importance does nature have by herself? She is nothing more than an excuse for the artist to express himself. . . . . Art is the never ending search for expression of internal feelings by means of plastic form."

Gustave Moreau (1826-1898), French Symbolist painter. Quoted by Julius Kaplan in The Art of Gustave Moreau: Theory, Style, and Content, 1972.
"Paintings have a life of their own that derives entirely from the painter's soul."
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Dutch painter. Jan Hulsker, The Complete van Gogh, 1977. See Post-Impressionism.
"No longer will I paint interiors, and people reading, and women knitting. I shall paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love."
Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Norwegian painter and printmaker.
"My art has allowed me to bare my soul."
Edvard Munch. Quoted by Ragna Stang in Edvard Munch: The Man and His Art, 1977.
"I value those artists who embody the expression of their life."
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Russian artist, worked in Germany and France. See abstraction, Bauhaus, and Russian art.
"Expression, to my way of thinking, does not consist of the passions mirrored upon a human face or betrayed by a violent gesture. The whole arrangement of my picture is expression. The place occupied by figures or objects, the empty spaces around them, the proportions-- everything plays a part. Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner the various elements at the painter's disposal for the expression of his feelings. In a picture every part will be visible and will play the role conferred upon it, be it principal or secondary. All that is not useful in the picture is detrimental."
Henri Matisse (1869-1954), French painter. "Notes of a Painter," La Grande Revue Magazine, December 25, 1908.
"I would like to prevent people from ever seeing how a painting of mine has been done. What can it possibly matter? What I want is that the only thing emanating from my picture should be emotion."
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist. "Conversation avec Christian Zervos," Cahiers d'Art Magazine, numbers 7-10, 1935. See cubism.
"The artist must say it without saying it."
Duke Ellington (1899-1974), American jazz composer, pianist, and bandleader.

Also see Expressionism (with an uppercase E — an art movement dominant in Germany from 1905-1925, especially Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, which are usually referred to as German Expressionism, anticipated by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and others), caricature, frisson, grotesque, and obsession.