Die Brücke - WikiHQ

thumb|upright|Brücke manifesto 1906

Die Brücke (, "The Bridge"), also known as Künstlergruppe Brücke or KG Brücke, was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905. The founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, and Otto Mueller. The seminal group had a major impact on the evolution of modern art in the 20th century and the creation of expressionism. The group came to an end around 1913. The Brücke Museum in Berlin was named after the group.

The Brücke is sometimes compared to the roughly contemporary French group of the Fauves. Both movements shared interests in primitivist art and in the expressing of extreme emotion through high-keyed colors that were very often non-naturalistic. Both movements employed a drawing technique that was crude, and both groups shared an antipathy to complete abstraction. The Brücke artists' emotionally agitated paintings of city streets and sexually charged events transpiring in country settings made their French counterparts, the Fauves, seem tame by comparison.

History

The founding members of the Brücke in 1905 were four Jugendstil architecture students: Fritz Bleyl (1880–1966), Erich Heckel (1883–1970), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976). They met through the Königliche Technische Hochschule (technical university) of Dresden, where Kirchner and Bleyl began studying in 1901 and became close friends in their first term. They discussed art together and also studied nature, Kirchner continued studies in Munich 1903–1904, returning to Dresden in 1905 to complete his degree. The institution provided a wide range of studies in addition to architecture, such as freehand drawing, perspective drawing and the historical study of art. The name "Brücke" was intended to "symbolize the link, or bridge, they would form with art of the future".

The Die Brücke group had a two-tiered membership system: the artists themselves constituted the active membership, while their patrons and supporters, such as Otto Gussmann, a professor of decorative painting, constituted the passive membership. Passive members received portfolios of original prints, a membership card, and other perks in exchange for an annual contribution.

The Brücke aimed to eschew the prevalent traditional academic style and find a new mode of artistic expression, which would form a bridge (hence the name) between the past and the present. in 1906, where Kirchner wrote:

As part of the affirmation of their national heritage, they revived older media, particularly woodcut prints.

The group members initially "isolated" themselves in a working-class neighborhood of Dresden, aiming thereby to reject their own bourgeois backgrounds. Erich Heckel was able to obtain an empty butcher's shop on the Berlinerstrasse in Friedrichstadt for their use as a studio. Bleyl described the studio as:

:that of a real bohemian, full of paintings lying all over the place, drawings, books and artist’s materials — much more like an artist’s romantic lodgings than the home of a well-organised architecture student.

The group composed a manifesto (mostly Kirchner's work), which was carved on wood and asserted a new generation, "who want freedom in our work and in our lives, independence from older, established forces."

thumb|Otto Mueller, 1912

In September and October 1906, the first group exhibition was held, focused on the female nude, in the showroom of K.F.M. Seifert and Co. in Dresden.

Notes and references

External links

Brücke on Tate 'Art Terms'
Brücke-Museum Website
German Expressionist Prints teaching resource on the Brücke
Brücke prints at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
"Hottentots in tails" A turbulent history by Christian Saehrendt
Collection: "Expressionism–Die Brücke" from the University of Michigan Museum of Art