German Expressionism: Documents from the End of the Wilhelmine Empire to the Rise of National Socialism

By Rose-Carol Washton Long

"An indispensable anthology that immediately renders its predecessors obsolete. With its gathering of public and private documents, it carries us through the rise and fall of one of the great upheavals of modern art." —Robert Rosenblum, New York University

"These essays, including many previously unavailable in English, are rich with startling new insights into the German Expressionist psyche. Elucidating the artists' view of government, the role of women in modern society, and their own ambivalence about the effectiveness of abstract art, this anthology is essential reading for all scholars and students of twentieth-century art." —Joan Marter, author of Alexander Calder

German Expressionism, one of the most significant movements of early European modernism, was an enormously powerful element in Germany's cultural life from the end of the Wilhelmkine Empire to the Third Reich. While the movement embraced such diverse artists as E. L. Kirchner, Wassily Kandinsky, Käthe Kollwitz, and George Grosz, all the participants shared an almost messianic belief in the power of art to change society. Rose-Carol Washton Long has drawn together over eighty documents crucial to the understanding of German Expressionism, many of them translated for the first time into English.

Rose-Carol Washton Long is Professor of Art History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Among her books is Kandinsky: The Development of an Abstract Style.

Paperback
370 pages
University of California Press, 1995
5.9 x 1 x 8.9 inches
ISBN 9780520202641
Art History, Expressionism