In this brief essay from Phaidon 's Art in Time, we learn about how the artists of this movement channeled their despair and deep introspection into fervently forcible work. The Neo-Expressionists returned expressiveness and raw emotion to art, and in particular painting, using it as a channel through which they could command the world that they lived in. Much later, in the heady times of the 1980s, painters used this same strategy to move away from the aloof stoicism of some of the movements that came before, giving rise to Neo-Expressionism. Rather than simple mimesis of the natural world, the Expressionists chose to radically distort the forms and colors of the world in their raw depictions in order to arouse an emotional response from their viewers. Some of the most famous examples of Neo Expressionism pieces include Adieu (Georg Baselitz, 1982) and Café Deutschland I ( Jörg Immendorff, 1977-78).Expressionism emerged at the beginning of the 20th century as an artistic response to their Modernist malaise, an increasingly apathetic relationship with the physical world as a result of industrialization, urban growth, and other sometimes drastic societal shifts. Ironically, and somewhat tragically, it was this close relationship with large-scale commercialism that ultimately lead to the movement’s demise, something which wasn’t the case with Abstract Expressionism for example.īecause Neo Expressionism embraced and rejuvenated mythological and historical imagery (which was largely opposite to the modernists’ tendency to avoid any form of storytelling), some artists and scholars have since stated that Neo Expressionism lead to the evolution from Modernism to Postmodernism. This was simply due to the fact that Neo Expressionist art was bought and sold for higher prices than ever before and much of it was apparently motivated by money. Employing expressive, highly textural brushwork, sharp lines and intense colours, this new movement proudly went against the techniques and established beliefs what had preceded it.ĭue to the fact that work by Neo Expressionist artists was so intricately entwined with commercialism and media hype typical of the Reagan era at the time, some American artists started to question its authenticity as art. The Neo Expressionist artists, including Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Miquel Barcelo, Louise Bourgeois and Clemente Francesco, depicted their subjects in a noticeably jarring, somewhat raw manner. The key emphasis was on including a wide variety of themes such as the historical, the mythological, the erotic, the cultural and the nationalist.
By the 1980s, this rebirth had become an integral part of the return to a warm, sensual feel to artistic works across the world – and away from the stylistically distant, cool sparseness of Conceptualism and Minimalism.Ī broad scope of artists, particularly those from the United States, started to create more expressive, emotional works which sought to reaffirm the redemptive power of art, particularly painting.
However, the most famous return to Expressionism was brought about by Georg Baselitz who went on to lead a revival that had a huge influence on the German art scene during the 1970s: Neo-Expressionism. Over time, a large number of artists have practiced, revived and altered aspects of the original Expressionism movement which peaked at the turn of the 20th century.
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