Post-expressionism

Post-expressionism is a term coined by the German art critic Franz Roh to describe a variety of movements in the post-war art world which were influenced by expressionism but defined themselves through rejecting its aesthetic. Roh first used the term in an essay in 1925, "Magic Realism: Post-Expressionism", to contrast to Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub's "New Objectivity", which more narrowly characterized these developments within German art. Though Roh saw "post-expressionism" and "magic realism" as synonymous, later critics characterized distinctions between magic realism and other artists initially identified by Hartlaub and have also pointed out other artists in Europe who had different stylistic tendencies but were working within the same trend.

Leading up to World War I, much of the art world was under the influence of Futurism and Expressionism. Both movements abandoned any sense of order or commitment to objectivity or tradition.

The sentiment of Futurists was most vocally expressed by Filippo Marinetti in the Futurist Manifesto, where he called for a rejection of the past, a rejection of all imitation — of other artists or of the outside world — and praised the virtue of originality and triumph of technology. The Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, along these lines, said “After seeing electricity, I lost interest in nature.” Marinetti and other Futurists glorified war and violence as a way to revolution – bringing freedom, establishing new ideas, and rallying one to fight for one's own people – and as war was shaping up in Europe, many saw it and encouraged a way to “purify” the culture and destroy old, obsolete elements of society.

Expressionists, likewise abandoning imitation nature, sought to express emotional experience, but often centered their art around angst — inner turmoil; whether in reaction to the modern world, to alienation from society, or in the creation of personal identity. In concert with this evocation of angst, expressionists also echoed some of the same feelings of revolution as did Futurists. This is evidenced by a 1919 anthology of expressionist poetry titled Menschheitsdämmerung, which translates to “Dawn of Humanity” — meant to suggest that humanity was in a 'twilight'; that there was an imminent demise of some old way of being and beneath it the urgings of a new dawning.

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