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| Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Street, Berlin, 1913 |
Where one sees the most life, one can also feel the
loneliest. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Street,
Berlin illustrates (in an almost romantic way) how one can get lost in the
city while being surrounded by people. Busy city folk encompass the man on the
right, but he remains distinctly isolated in his space by the line running
through his cane and back. Kirchner carved out a specific little space in Street, Berlin for the man to be alone. German
Expressionists loved the idea of alienation and solitude (a reason why Kirchner
would later move to Berlin, solely to get lost amongst the crowd, like the man
in Street, Berlin). This depiction of
loneliness in the city became the origins of the film noir.
Visually, German Expressionist paintings of the city
could be snapshots from German film noirs or horror movies, besides the subject’s
distorted forms. Both depict the darker side of city life and use shadows to illustrate
people’s states of mind. One iconic example would be Fritz Lang’s 1931 film M. Peter Lorre’s character’s (a serial
murder of children) shadow becomes a looming presence that bears down on the
children he stalks. Another example would be F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922). In this, Max Schreck’s shadow engulfs the vampire’s
victims just before he delivers his fatal kiss. But film noir became popular in
Hollywood, U.S.A. around the 1940s. German Expressionism would have a larger
impact at home before entering the U.S.
Kirchner belonged to a group called Die Brücke (German
for The Bridge), which formed in Dresden around 1905. Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter
(German for The Blue Rider) were the two schools of German Expressionism. Franz
Marc and Wassily Kandinsky led Der Blaue Reiter in Berlin, while Kirchner and
Emil Nolde dominated the Dresden art scene. Der Blaue Reiter had more
abstraction and less scenes of city life in their art than Kirchner and his ilk’s.
Marc’s works would more influential in works like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (a much more abstract film
than M). But both groups would be labeled
degenerate art by Germany’s new regime, the Third Reich.
The Nazi’s despised German Expressionism and devoted
themselves to eradicating it from the German culture. They confiscated
Expressionist works from museums and had all the Die Brückes and Der Blaue
Reiters fired from teaching positions at the art academies. The oppression from
the Nazi’s Reich would lead to Kirchner’s suicide in 1938. But before Kirchner killed
himself, he burnt all of his paintings in his studio for fear that the Nazis
would have that pleasure. With Hitler in control, many artists fled Germany
such as Paul Klee (a member of Der Blaue Reiter) and Fritz Lang (a German
Expressionist film maker). Fritz would go to Paris, and when that became
occupied, the United States. Here, German Expressionism was viewed in Fritz’s
films and helped influence American cinema. Even to this day, film
critics claim Fritz Lang to be the godfather of modern cinema. And German
Expressionism itself would again rise to power in the German media after the
Nazi’s degenerate art show, which displayed numerous Expressionist works. The
Nazis had intended for people to scoff at these paintings, but instead they
fell in love with them, creating a cult following of the German Expressionists.
After WWII, the German Expressionists would claim their place in art history.
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