Overview

During the period in which Expressionist artists were active in central Europe, art historians were producing texts which also began to be characterized evocatively as ’expressionist’, yet the notion of an expressionist art history has yet to be fully explored in historiographic studies of the discipline. This anthology offers a cross-section of noteworthy art history texts that have been described as expressionist, along with critical commentaries by an international group of scholars. Written between 1912 and 1933, the primary sources have been selected from the published scholarship of both recognized and less-familiar figures in the field's Germanic tradition: Wilhelm Worringer, Fritz Burger, Ernst Heidrich, Max Dvořák, Heinrich Wölfflin, and Carl Einstein. Translated here for the first time, these examples of an expressionist turn in art history, along with their secondary analyses and the book's introduction, offer a productive lens through which to re-examine the practice and theory of art history in the early twentieth century.

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9781409449997

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'The Expressionist Turn is a ground-breaking anthology and the first of its kind to consider the concept of an expressionist art history. Providing both new, primary translations and trenchant, secondary interpretive texts, this book will change the way we approach the elusive term Expressionism as a stylistic designation and a historiographic category.' Jay A. Clarke, Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, The Clark '... provoking argument about the relation of art to history is a worthy endeavour, so the editors and authors of The Expressionist Turn have already put us in their debt.' Journal of Art Historiography

'The Expressionist Turn is a ground-breaking anthology and the first of its kind to consider the concept of an expressionist art history. Providing both new, primary translations and trenchant, secondary interpretive texts, this book will change the way we approach the elusive term Expressionism as a stylistic designation and a historiographic category.' Jay A. Clarke, Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, The Clark '... provoking argument about the relation of art to history is a worthy endeavour, so the editors and authors of The Expressionist Turn have already put us in their debt.' Journal of Art Historiography 'This book is a treasure for all who are interested in the complexities and contradictions of the emergence of German Modernism's interpretive mode. Given the contemporary relevance of the need for a drastic change in art historical perception and practice, it is high time for an Expressionist revival, or at least arrival, in the Anglophone world. The Expressionist Turn in Art History does much to pave the way.' Sehepunkte

Author Information

Kimberly A. Smith is Professor of Art History at Southwestern University, where she teaches the history of modern art.

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