German art

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German art describes the history of the visual arts in Germany

The Bamberg Horseman is a stone equestrian statue by an anonymous medieval sculptor from the cathedral of Bamberg.

The Danube School (German:Donauschule or Donaustil) is the name of a circle of painters of the first third of the 16th century in Bayern and Austria

Hans Holbein the Elder and his brother Sigismund Holbein painted religious works in the late Gothic style. Hans the Elder was a pioneer and leader in the transformation of German art from the Gothic to the Renaissance style. Hans Holbein the Younger painted in the Northern Renaissance style.

The Heller altar by Albrecht Dürer

The German Renaissance was a result of German artists who had travelled to Italy to learn more and become inspired by the Renaissance movement. Albrecht Dürer was a well known German artist of this period. During the first few years from 1495 onwards he worked in the established Germanic and northern forms but was open to the influences of the Renaissance. After visiting Italy, Dürer was back in Nuremberg by mid-1507, remaining in Germany until 1520.

The wise and foolish virgins(1813) by Peter von Cornelius

The Düsseldorf school was a group of artists who painted mostly landscapes, and who studied at, or were influenced by the Düsseldorf Academy. Founded in 1767, the academy's influence grew in the 1830s and 1840s with the popularity of the Nazrenes. The name Nazarene was adopted by a group of early nineteenth century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive honesty and spirituality in Christian art. The principal motivation of the Nazarenes was a reaction against Neoclassicism and the routine art education of the academy system. They hoped to return to art which embodied spiritual values, and sought inspiration in artists of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, rejecting what they saw as the superficial virtuosity of later art.

Biedermeier refers to work in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design in the period between the years 1815 (Vienna Congress), the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and 1848.

1 20th century
- 1.1 Art in the third reich
2 Modern art
3 contemporary artists

[edit] 20th century

Plakatstil, was an early poster style of art that began in the early 1900s and originated out of Germany. "Plakatstil" means "poster style" in German. The traits of this style of art are usually bold, straight font with very simple design.

Rehe im Walde by Franz Marc

Der Blaue Reiter established in Munich, Germany in 1911. Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin and others founded the group in response to the rejection of Kandinsky's painting Last Judgement from an exhibition by Neue Künstlervereinigung—another artists' group of which Kandinsky had been a member. The name Der Blaue Reiter derived from Marc's enthusiasm for horses, and from Kandinsky's love of the colour blue. For Kandinsky, blue is the colour of spirituality—the darker the blue, the more it awakens human desire for the eternal (see his 1911 book On the Spiritual in Art). Kandinsky had also titled a painting Der Blaue Reiter (see illustration) in 1903.

Family portrait by Max Beckmann

Die Brücke was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905. The original four Jugendstil architecture students led by Hermann Obrist included:

Fritz Bleyl (1880-1966)
Erich Heckel (1883-1970)
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976)

Die Brücke was one of two groups of German painters fundamental to Expressionism, the other being Der Blaue Reiter group ("The Blue Rider") formed in Munich in 1911.

The New Objectivity, or neue Sachlichkeit (new matter-of-factness), was an art movement which arose in Germany during the 1920s as an outgrowth of, and in opposition to, expressionism. It is thus post-expressionist. The term is applied to works of pictorial art, literature, music, and architecture. It describes the stripped-down, simplified building style of the Bauhaus, the urban planning and public housing projects of Bruno Taut and Ernst May like the Weissenhof settlement, and the industrialization of the household typified by the Frankfurt kitchen.

[edit] Art in the third reich

Degenerate art (from the German: entartete Kunst) was the official platform adopted by the Nazi regime for banning modern art in favor of Heroic Art. According to Nazi thinking, Heroic Art symbolized racially pure art, free from distortion and corruption, while modern styles deviated from the prescribed norm of classical beauty. While the 1920s to 1940s are considered the heyday of modern art movements, there were conflicting nationalistic movements that resented abstract art, and Germany was no exception. Avant-garde German artists, mostly Expressionists, were now branded both enemies of the state and a threat to the German nation. Many went into exile and lost both their reputations and credibility.

The entartete Kunst exhibit premiered in Munich in March, 1937, and travelled to eleven other cities in Germany and Austria. The show was intended as an official condemnation of modern art, and included over 650 paintings, sculptures, prints, and books from the collections of thirty two German museums. Expressionism, which had its origins in Germany, contained the largest proportion of paintings represented. It was considered the first blockbuster art exhibit of the twentieth century, with an estimated attendance of three million visitors. The exhibition was far more popular than the nearby exhibition of officially sponsored so called heroic art.