EXPRESSIONISM

 

 

The expressionism that cares the inner world of the artist was the main subject emerged. Expressionist artists do not hesitate to change the outline of the truth to reflect their inner world. At that point we can separate Expressionism into two period one is before the war times. This expressionist approaches cares individual design and creates unique examples like we seen in the works of Crystal Chain, Bruno Taut gave the important examples about Expressionist architecture. The second period was that the tense political situation of the time and the changing policies causing a deterioration of normal life in people and inwardness. the expressionism that had disappeared during the oppression period of the Nazis, actually emerged by taking advantage of this period of oppression and depression and expressionist revealed darker artifacts.

 

Edward Munch’s   ‘Scream’ painting is one of the most famous works of this period. It is possible to see expressionist applications such as the use of color and the change of reality in this painting. Even The red tones of the sky and the screaming figure carry the feeling of fear, the people behind add calmness and give the sense that everything is normal. If we try to explain the scream feeling that everybody has ; with the 19th century, the world began to change rapidly; gods and traditions were no longer the way that people followed, and now in this period there is only panic sense.

 

 

Erich Mendelsohn’s sketches which show the expressionist approach in architecture appreciated at that time and wanted to design an observatory; here is the story of the famous Einstein tower. In addition to the functional design of the expressionist architecture, it was important to reflect emotions and ideas on the structure. The name ‘Einstein’ of tower required to contain concepts like light, space and a groundbreaking theorem of motion in its expressionist meaning.

Einstein tower section drawing by Alper AL

 

Einstein’s work explained that the light in space is an independent factor of everything. The certain part of the building was the tower because of its mission as an observatory but the circle shape of the windows and elevating the ground with giving the sense of wave and circulation designed by Erich Mendelsohn to connect these senses with the dynamism of light and show its speed and spread.

 

 

The technological potential of the period prevented the construction of the building as sculpted concrete and then Einstein tower completed as brickwork. Although this situation effected his ambitious projects for future, the great expression of expressionism and the use of vegetation as an architectural element were couple of reasons why this work is still very important and popular today.

 

Henry Van de Velde House ( Art nouveau )

 

We know that Henry Van de Velde was an important representative of art Nouveau and when we analyses Henry van de Velde’s house we realized that usage of furnishers with curved lines and figures based on these ideas. Like the idea of expressionism, Art nouveau argued that art and design came from the inner world of the artist rather than something that came from the interpretation and influence of the outside world. The artists Edward Munch or James Ensor who grew up under the influence of art nouveau, were influenced by the changing and tense environment and then they found a way to express their sorrow, sickness, screams and deaths with using expressionism.