Art & Music - Expressionism...3/4

Depicting a personal reality

Expressionism evolved out of a societal drive to reveal the subconscious and to explore the human condition. 

While the psychoanalytic writings of Freud fascinated readers with the war between the ego and the id, the nihilistic philosophy of Nietzsche fueled an intellectual debate about the existence of God and Dostoevsky wrote of a harsh, unforgiving and inhumane society.  All of these themes contributed to a general sense of foreboding and impending doom brought about by the end of the 19th and the birth of the 20^th century. 

Subconscious subversion

In part, such a dark view of humanity can be interpreted as a reaction to the bourgeois, industrialized pre-World War I European society. A subversion of the external social order was necessary; artists sought to do this by expressing the unrecognized or subconscious forces of the ‘inner life’.  Whatever the medium, an authentic, yet subjective, personal reaction was essential to depicting internal suffering.

A synthesis of themes

 An excellent example of this synthesis is revealed through the close personal relationship between Schoenberg and Kandinsky.  Through a series of letters and projects, artist and composer exerted great influence upon one another, both agreeing – in the words of Schoenberg – that, “Art should express the subconscious, unfettered by the conscious”.  Schoenberg also painted in the expressionistic style; Kandinsky, who played the cello and the piano, used musical terms to describe his works, calling his spontaneous works ‘improvisations’ and more complex pieces, ‘compositions’. 

Both extraordinary lives were microcosms of the contemporary societal exploration of the inter-relatedness of visual art and music.  Their friendship and professional collaboration illustrates expressionism’s wide influence on a variety of contemporary art forms, and the artistic exploration of the ‘inner life’: our human condition.

Journeying forward

But how did the inner journey exemplified by the expressionist movement in the early part of the 20^th century develop?  What, if any, are the ramifications of its influences today, as we explore life in our new millennium?

(This is the next in a series created for the Fuschia Tree's art magazine, Artitude, exploring the inter-relatedness of art and music.)