In 'Expressionism and Poster Design in Germany 1905–1925', Kathleen Chapman re-defines Expressionism by situating it in relation to the most common type of picture in public space during the Wilhelmine twentieth century, the commercial poster. Focusing equally on visual material and contemporaneous debates surrounding art, posters, and the image in general, this study reveals that conceptions of a 'modern' image were characterized not so much by style or mode of production and distribution, but by a visual rhetoric designed to communicate more directly than words. As instances of such rhetoric, Expressionist art and posters emerge as equally significant examples of this modern image, demonstrating the interconnectedness of the aesthetic, the utilitarian, and the commercial in European modernism.
Author(s): Kathleen G. Chapman
Series: Brill’s Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History, 32
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 384
City: Leiden
Acknowledgements vii
List of Figures x
Introduction: Expressionism between Spirit and Commerce 1
1. Illustration, Abstraction, Advertising: Wilhelm Worringer and the Continuities of German Art 51
2. Hieroglyphic Appeal: the Visual Rhetoric of the German Object Poster, Werkbund Style, and Expressionist Art 87
3. Promoting Expressionism before Expressionism: Künstlergruppe Brücke and Theories of the Modern Image before World War I 137
4. From War to Revolution, from Propaganda to Art: Expressionism and Posters of the Revolutionary Period 197
5. Expressionism after Expressionism: “Dead” Expressionism and Theories of the Modern Image after World War I 259
Conclusion: Expressionism as Buzzword 328
Copyright of Figures 337
Bibliography 342
Index 364
