Expressionism

Symbolism, Expressionism, and Cubism

Edvard Munch, a Norwegian painter, developed his symbolic approach in the late 19th century, inspired by the French Impressionist Manet. Scream (1893), his most famous work, is widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man. Partly as a result of Munch’s influence, the German Expressionist movement emerged in Germany in the early 20th century, when artists such as Ernst Kirchner and Erich Haeckel began to distort reality for emotional effect. In parallel, a style known as Cubism developed in France as artists focused on the volume and space of sharp structures within a composition. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were leading proponents of the movement. Objects are broken down, analyzed and reassembled in abstract form. By the 1920s, the style had evolved into Surrealism with Dali and Magritte.