This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

HAVC 135B : German Art 1905-1945

Unit Two: Spirit, Material, Revolution, and Discontent

In this unit, we will look at the development of abstraction in the early 20th century, the experience and impacts of WWI on artists and German society, the ways that art and culture responded to economic ebbs and flows, and the rise of National Socialism.

Guiding Questions

How did concept (i.e. idea) and form (i.e. style) unify in early Expressionism?
How did major political events—including Germany’s colonial exploits, WWI, the worker’s movements in the post-WWI period, a fluctuating economy, and the rise of National Socialism—manifest themselves both formally and thematically in Expressionist and post-Expressionist art?
What continuities exist between the Romanticist and Hegelian interest in art as a means of self-understanding and the motivations of Expressionist and Post-Expressionist artists?
How is “authenticity” (as well as “realism”) defined and redefined across these artistic practices, including ones that were decidedly apolitical (i.e. the universal claims of Expressionism) and those that were explicitly political (i.e. the social critique and use of materials in Dada)?
How did artists and the German public respond to technology and/or modern living? In what ways were these responses ambivalent or sometimes contradictory?
How did the political imperatives of Dada and of some Neue Sachlichkeit artworks and photography replace the experimental ones of Expressionism?

Comments on Guiding Questions are due by Saturday, August 13 at 5PM. Make your comments at the bottom of THIS page. (Click here for more instructions.)

Assignment Information
30% of final grade; due Tuesday, August 16 at the beginning of class

Unit Schedule
Aside from the sections in Long, all readings, including optional texts, are available for download on each session page.

Tuesday, August 2
- Session 3A: Expressionist Philosophies (Early Manifestations)
- Session 3B: Expressionist Forms (The Expansion of Expressionism)

Thursday, August 4
- Session 4A: Primitivist Fantasies: Art and the German Colonies
- Session 4B: War and Revolution

Tuesday, August 9
- Session 5A: Gesamtkunstwerk: Utopia and the Built Environment
- Session 5B: Gesamtkunstwerk: Film
  - Film Screening: Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1927, 149’

Thursday, August 11
- Session 6A: Dada and the Politics of Mass Media
- Session 6B: Neue Sachlichkeit: The Return to the Object

This page has paths:

Contents of this path:

Contents of this path:

Contents of this tag:

This page has replies:

The goal of Expressionism was to depicts the world viscerally, instead of how it just looked on the surface and to reinvigorate art with authenticity and an expressive force. They wanted to evoke emotions. They wanted to show the emotions of the artist and to stir an emotional response in the viewer. The artists showed this concept with their use of color (they tended to go for bright colors), and they were less refined in their painting style. They would leave their brush strokes showing (unlike the classically trained artists from the academies) or they would take a more abstract approach to the subject matter they were painting, leaving the meaning more up to the viewer.
Contents of this reply:
1. Unit Two: Spirit, Material, Revolution, and Discontent 37 gallery 305204 2016-08-03T09:02:40-07:00
  In this unit, we will look at the development of abstraction in the early 20th century, the experience and impacts of WWI on artists and German society, the ways that art and culture responded to economic ebbs and flows, and the rise of National Socialism.
  
  Guiding Questions
  How did concept (i.e. idea) and form (i.e. style) unify in early Expressionism?
  How did major political events—including Germany’s colonial exploits, WWI, the worker’s movements in the post-WWI period, a fluctuating economy, and the rise of National Socialism—manifest themselves both formally and thematically in Expressionist and post-Expressionist art?
  What continuities exist between the Romanticist and Hegelian interest in art as a means of self-understanding and the motivations of Expressionist and Post-Expressionist artists?
  How is “authenticity” (as well as “realism”) defined and redefined across these artistic practices, including ones that were decidedly apolitical (i.e. the universal claims of Expressionism) and those that were explicitly political (i.e. the social critique and use of materials in Dada)?
  How did artists and the German public respond to technology and/or modern living? In what ways were these responses ambivalent or sometimes contradictory?
  How did the political imperatives of Dada and of some Neue Sachlichkeit artworks and photography replace the experimental ones of Expressionism?
  Comments on Guiding Questions are due by Saturday, August 13 at 5PM. Make your comments at the bottom of THIS page. (Click here for more instructions.)
  
  Assignment Information
  30% of final grade; due Tuesday, August 16 at the beginning of class
  
  Unit Schedule
  Aside from the sections in Long, all readings, including optional texts, are available for download on each session page.
  Tuesday, August 2
  Session 3A: Expressionist Philosophies (Early Manifestations)
  Session 3B: Expressionist Forms (The Expansion of Expressionism)
  
  Thursday, August 4
  Session 4A: Primitivist Fantasies: Art and the German Colonies
  Session 4B: War and Revolution
  
  Tuesday, August 9
  Session 5A: Gesamtkunstwerk: Utopia and the Built Environment
  Session 5B: Gesamtkunstwerk: Film
  Film Screening: Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1927, 149’
  
  Thursday, August 11
  Session 6A: Dada and the Politics of Mass Media
  Session 6B: Neue Sachlichkeit: The Return to the Object