Artesplorazioni: Die Brücke

It is a group of German expressionist artists whose name intended to express the faith of its members in the art of the future, towards the which their works constituted a bridge. The name Die brücke, translated means own bridge. Their subjects consisted mainly of landscapes and compositions of figures, especially naked outdoors.

The pictorial style with they were treated very heavily, used strong colors and often not naturalistic and simplified forms, energetic and angular. There is a sense of anxiety and restlessness that transpires in the works of these painters who were often almost lacking an academic and professional pictorial training. They were influenced not only by late medieval German art, but also from the art of primitive peoples.

The woodcut became one of the techniques beloved of the group, because it is particularly suitable for the performance of strong chromatic contrasts and deformed features typical of the art of these painters. They soon got the first acknowledgments, but they started to lose the group identity as individual styles became more evident. The founders were four architecture students: Fritz Bleyl, Erich Eckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluf, although others artists were added at different times, such as Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Muller.

Die brücke was officially born in 1905 to dissolve eight years later, in 1913, just before the outbreak of the Great war. The gaps between the artists became increasingly larger and this was the main cause of their separation. The group came to life in Drsden, but involved the whole of Germany a little.

From the 1911 all the members of the Brücke moved to Berlin, center of greater cultural vivacity. Their purposes were vague, but initially they meant break with the arid conventions of the bourgeoisie and create a pictorial style radically new, more in tune with modern life. However the group gave a strong boost to expressionism in Germany.