Expressionism

[ ik-spresh-uh-niz-uhm ]

noun

1. Fine Arts.
   1. (usually lowercase) a manner of painting, drawing, sculpting, etc., in which forms derived from nature are distorted or exaggerated and colors are intensified for emotive or expressive purposes.
   2. a style of art developed in the 20th century, characterized chiefly by heavy, often black lines that define forms, sharply contrasting, often vivid colors, and subjective or symbolic treatment of thematic material.
   3. German Ex·pres·si·o·nis·mus [eks-p, r, es-ee-oh-, nis, -m, oo, s]. modern art, especially the experimental or nonacademic styles of contemporary art.
2. (often lowercase) Theater. a style of playwriting and stage presentation stressing the emotional content of a play, the subjective reactions of the characters, symbolic or abstract representations of reality, and nonnaturalistic techniques of scenic design.
3. Literature. a technique of distorting objects and events in order to represent them as they are perceived by a character in a literary work.
4. (usually lowercase) a phase in the development of early 20th-century music marked by the use of atonality and complex, unconventional rhythm, melody, and form, intended to express the composer's psychological and emotional life.

expressionism

/ ɪkˈsprɛʃəˌnɪzəm /

noun

1. sometimes capital an artistic and literary movement originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, which sought to express emotions rather than to represent external reality: characterized by the use of symbolism and of exaggeration and distortion

expressionism

1. An artistic style that departs from the conventions of realism (see also realism ) and naturalism (see also naturalism ) and seeks to convey inner experience by distorting rather than directly representing natural images. The highly personal visions communicated in the paintings of Vincent van Gogh are early examples of expressionism. Edvard Munch and Georges Rouault are considered expressionist painters.

Derived Forms

• exˌpressionˈistic, adjective
• exˈpressionist, nounadjective

Other Words From

• Ex·pres·sion·ist noun adjective
• Ex·pres·sion·is·tic [ik-spresh-, uh, -, nis, -tik], adjective
• Ex·pres·sion·is·ti·cal·ly adverb
• an·ti·ex·pres·sion·ism noun
• an·ti·ex·pres·sion·ist noun adjective
• an·ti·ex·pres·sion·is·tic adjective
• non·ex·pres·sion·is·tic adjective
• pro·ex·pres·sion·ism noun
• pro·ex·pres·sion·ist noun adjective
• pro·ex·pres·sion·is·tic adjective
• sem·i·ex·pres·sion·is·tic adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of Expressionism¹

1905–10; < German Expressionismus See expression, -ism

Example Sentences

You introduced me to German Expressionism and Lubitsch and Hitchcock and such a broad collection of mostly classic and older films.

From Los Angeles Times

She was part of the group of postwar artists — Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan and Elaine de Kooning — written about in the book “Ninth Street Women,” which details how abstract expressionism was born in this country and how women were a crucial part of it.

From Los Angeles Times

In his review, AP Film Writer Jake Coyle wrote that “Like its predecessor, ‘Dune: Part Two’ thrums with an intoxicating big-screen expressionism of monoliths and mosquitos, fevered visions and messianic fervor — more dystopian dream, or nightmare, than a straightforward narrative.”

From Seattle Times

Katherine Porter, a painter who carried an intuitive, dreamy, vividly colored branch of Expressionism into the 21st century, died on April 22 at her home in Santa Fe, N.M.

From New York Times

The first wave of minimalism in America emerged as a postwar avant-garde that sought to extinguish artist subjectivity in favor of the object — a rejection of the excesses of self-expression and of the cult of genius that had come to define Abstract Expressionism and other movements of the 1940s and ’50s.

From New York Times