[paper/課程論文/論文] 英語語言學：Expressionism的字源與歷史

History of the English Language

The Origin of the Word “Expressionism” 

“One should not ask about the quality of this art but about its intensity.”

-- Kurt Pinthus, German author, journalist, critic and commentator, 1886-1975

     Expressionism, a style and art school always referred by “The Scream (The Cry)”  by Edvard Munch in 1983, gives an anxiety-inducing, irrational impression to us. Particularly, this impression could subordinate in Expressionism but does not fully explain Expressionism if we look into the origin of the term (figure 1). In this journal, I would like to give an introduction to the origin of the word, Expressionism, in three aspects: The spirit of Expressionism, the trend of the term, and why it is meaningful to study the term to recap something we've learnt in History of the English Language.

figure 1. “The Scream (The Cry)” by Edward Munch, a masterpiece of Expressionism

     When we talk about a spirit, or core value of certain art movement, we need to pose a first and crucial question: What did those artist shout against to? To react against Impressionism, the art movement that values nature and the lights in nature from 19th century (figure 2), a large group of artists picked up Expressionism along with the hope for "New Human" since 19th century. The word, "Expressionism," originated from France and initially highlighted the imprint of an artist’s imagination in 1850. Later, when the foreign term stormed over Germany, Expressionism prioritizes the self-evident term, “express, ” to evoke moods and ideas. This redefinition results from two background: For proximate cause, it is because of discontent of mechanized city and exploitation in working environment after Industrial Revolution. For remote, and also profound cause, it is because of Germany’s long history of “artistic revolt and extreme individualism exhibited in its baroque drama and painting” (Kellner 1983). It aims to "express yourself" from one’s temperament, and later involves some features in Impressionism, such as observation and experiences, with an artist’s feelings and directness, the most important elements in Expressionism (Dittman 1989, Gordon). To give a brief conclusion so far, we can affirm that Expressionism prefers some subjective emotions rather than excessively objective illustration and dull mechanism in life. With these subjective emotions, it is not a strange thing to see “unimpressive aesthetically” work (Wiki, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism) as “The Scream” has its desperate, distorted reality crippling around the canvas and the nerve of viewers. What makes Expressionism creepier is that Munich has said about Expressionism, “to reconstruct in the mind’s eye the original picture of reality from the colour analysis of that reality” in 1914, and Expressionism has another definition as “an expression of a world in total” (Dittman). The two perspectives have some chances giving inspiration to Adolf Hitler, both an art school student and a Nazi leader in World War II, who savaged racial reformation and traumatic violence to the entire world (figure 3).

figure 2. “Impression, Sunrise” by Monet, 1874, a classic of Impressionis.

figure 3., “The Night” by Max Beckman in 1918-1919, one of Degenerate Art. “Degenerate Art” during Nazi period to label “Modern Art” and exclude other “forbidden and sick art” by the regime. It contains great feature of Expressionism and resembles glaring warning of mixing politics and emotions together, assumed by art critics. 

     To know about the trend of Expressionism, milestones in timeline are listed. Expressionism was not coined until 1850 before World War I (i.e. 1914-1918) , and also, was not published until 1900 (Gordon 1996), as we can see from the stastatic in Google Books Ngram Viewer. Expressionism is not used in literary until 1900’s and reached its peak in publication around 1970’s (figure 4). The trending is possibly affected by the highly recognized art style at 70’s, Neo-expressionism, to praise an actual object other than overly conceptual, minimal art (figure 5) from 60’s. Such nostalgia for Expressionism and reflection on it increase the use of the word "Expressionism" in 70's. However, we cannot forget one of the reasons why Expressionism has become a sensation from the very beginning in Germany. Thanks to the painskiling effort on interpretive works on publicizing the movement by its followers, Expressionism is the most “self conscious” movement in art, (Kellner 1983) possibly by a lot of advertising and writing.

     

figure 4. The literary use of “Expressionism” by Google Books Ngram Viewer. From https://books.google.com/ngrams

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figure 5. Conceptual Art. “Active Poetry,” Ewa Partum, 1971. Ewa Partum used performance as a means of creating her poetry. Her poetic works were made by taking individual letters of the alphabet cut from paper, and scattering them in city and countryside locations. By deconstructing language, the artist aimed to explore its structures. Resources and Artistic Description from Tate Museum, London, UK.From https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/conceptual-art

     Lastly, why should we care about Expressionism and the origin of Expressionism in this journal of History of English Language? In fact, Expressionism is such an amazing term just exactly because its origin strongly relates to social factor introduced in the class. It was invented to refer to avant-garde workpiece and mindset, but later picked up by German to immerse their culture in it to indicate a rising artistic movement and opinion to current society. This variation shows the social factor on a word, which is not because of what we have learnt in the course that a sovereignty imposes certain language for social division or long-held ruling, but because of the purpose by some visionaries to make use of, and even enlarge the meaning of a foreign term. The history and origin of the word “Expressionism” really moved me when I was digging into the reading material, even with its followed deficiency and failure. Surely we can criticize for this kind of appropriation, however, we can also take it as a historical phenomenon that a single word can sparkle art history with German artists’ hot blood and their subjective orientation, both yearn for changes, and further revolt. 

Bibliagraphy 

“Conceptual Art.” Tate Museum. Used on January 18, 2020, from https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/conceptual-art

Dittmann, Lorenz. On the Definition of German Expressionism. German 

Expressionism : the colours of desire [Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 11       October - 10 December 1989 ; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 20 December 1989 - 18 February 1990]. Sydney 1989, pp. 10-15.

“Expressionism.” Wiki. Used on January 18, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism

Google Book Ngram. Used on January 17, 2020, from https://books.google.com/ngrams

Gordon, D. E.. “On the Origin of the Word 'Expressionism'.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 29 (1966), pp. 368-385.

Kellner, Douglas . “Toward a Reinterpretation of Expressionism.” Expressionism and Rebellion: The Expressionist’s Heritage (1983). pp.3-39.