World War I

Thrown into the slaughter of the First World War, they had foreseen the horrible cataclysm
in striking prophetic visions. The expressionist generation then began to call for the rise of a
New Man. From 1916, it inclined in the direction of pacifism (even Hanns Johst, the future
paragon of Nazi writers). After the announcement of the end of the world, the Apocalypse,
regeneration, reconstruction, were key words. Faced with atrocities, Utopian idealism
seemed to many to be the basis for a possible solution. Salvation was not seen in the
context of a collective social struggle, in an economic and political transformation of society,
but in an inner renewal of Man. Some of the expressionists (Ludwig Rubiner, Rudolf
Leonard, Ludwig Baumer, Johannes R. Becher, the activists around Kurt Hiller and his
publication Das Ziel) also found in various ways the road towards some kind of political
commitment. The revolutionary events that shook Germany in November 1918 left some of
them uncertain what to do (Gottfried Benn, Oskar Kokoschka, Paul Kornfeld), but many
actively participated: Ludwig Baumer was one of those responsible for the Council of
Bremen, Ernst Toller was one of the leaders of the independent socialist republic of Bavaria.
The painter Conrad Felixmuller and the playwright Friedrich Wolf were at the battle of
Dresden. Wieland Herzfelde and Franz Pfemfert were thrown into prison when the counter-
revolution was winning; Carl Einstein was one of the architects of the soldiers' Council at
Brussels in November 1918.

Herbert Kuhn, in 1919, saw in this type of commitment, which often had a religious and
mystical dimension, a logical extension of expressionism: "There is no expressionism
without socialism. It is not a coincidence that Art Nouveau was so vigorously open to
politics." Yvan Goll, in 1921, made a statement that went in the same direction:
"Expressionism is the literature of war and revolution, of the intellectual struggling against
the powerful, the revolt of the conscience against blind obedience, the cry of the heart
against the thunder of massacres and the silence of the oppressed."

The influence of Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter extended over the interim of the two
European wars. At the outset of World War I in September 1914, many Expressionists
believed the conflict could be the apocalyptic event that would finally overthrow the self-
satisfied materialism of the establishment they had fought against. Many artists enlisted
for active duty: Kirchner, Macke and Marc, to name just a few. They would soon endure
terrible experiences at the war front. Kirchner was discharged soon after enlisting and
admitted to a sanatorium after a mental breakdown. Macke died in battle at Champagne
in 1914, while Marc was killed instantly by a shell splinter at Verdun in 1916. Other
Expressionists avoided the front lines by volunteering for the medical corps, as was the
case of Max Beckmann. This did not prevent these artists from experiencing an equally
severe disappointment with the war. Beckmann’s style, for instance, would undergo a
dramatic transformation immediately following the hostilities. An illustrative example of
the demoralizing effects of the war is Kirchner’s painting “Self-Portrait as a Soldier”,
which depicts the painter in his studio, dressed in a uniform with an amputated arm. The
unresolved conflict between the artist’s outfit and the studio setting underlines a sudden
loss of his former idealism. Other surviving artists showed a similar reflection of the war
front, violently reacting to its political causes. From their regenerative impulse emerged
a positive outcome in art and culture, which would eventually find its central base in
Berlin.

After World War I↑

The period between the two great wars, from 1919 to 1939, was characterized,
especially in Germany, by a crude and satirical type of Expressionism, which aimed to
send a sociopolitical message. It was then that a new style called Neue
Sachlichkeit appeared. Its regenerative goal was to correct the dramatic circumstances
in which the country had been submerged, having just lost the war. During the
subsequent Weimar Republic, which extended from 1919 to 1933, artists of this new
current reacted with irony and mordacity to the sociopolitical situation of post-war
Germany, marked by the catastrophe of World War I, the accompanying economic crisis
and the threat of National Socialism. Just as the earlier Die Brücke years had intuited
the tragedy of the first major European conflict with its dramatic and snug
expressionism, the Neue Sachlichkeit would manifest itself through intelligent and
demolishing caricatures intended to indict a country falsely guided by a pretense of
strength and power, being driven instead to a second major confrontation. In addition to
Max Beckmann, these new Expressionists included George Grosz and Otto Dix. Their
work evidenced a clear reaction to the previous Expressionism, brandishing realism and
classicism against the former introverted emotionalism.
CUBISM: WORLD WAR I AND BEYOND
World War I effectively halted Cubism as an organized movement, with a
number of artists, including Braque, Lhote, de la Fresnaye and Léger,
getting called up for duty. De la Fresnaye was discharged in 1917 due to
tuberculosis. He never fully recovered, attempting to continue art-making
but dying in 1925.
By 1917, Picasso returned his practice of injecting more realism into his
paintings, though his refusal to be pinned down meant Cubism
reappeared in some works over the years, such as The Three
Musicians(1921) and The Weeping Woman(1937), a response to the
Spanish Civil War.
Braque continued his experimentation. His further work featured
elements of Cubism, though noted for less rigidity in the abstractions of
the subjects and using colors that don’t reflect the reality of the still life.

The Fall of Dadaism

Despite spreading so fast, the movement was also quite unstable. Some
of the artists migrated into other faction movements and ideas. During
the 1921-22 period, Dadaism eventually was dissolved into another rival
factions. One such faction was Surrealism which was pioneered by Andre
Breton. Other factions included Socialist Realism and certain modernism
forms.
By the beginning of World War II, most of the Dadaists in Europe fled into exile in the
US while some suffered the wrath of Hitler who disliked the radical art represented
by Dadaism. The movement became even less active after World War II which saw
other movements rise in place of Dada. Today, the Cabaret Voltaire is a museum in
memory of the Dada history