Expressionism.
What is expressive art?
Expressionism is a style of art, whereby it is meant to capture emotions rather than realism.
It is often used in arts therapy and psychology.
Expressive art is often abstract or fluid, and is more of an intuitive response for the artist.
If I had to explain the term with music I would liken it to a violin. Loud and emotive, up and down in varying tones and degrees, full of expression and explaining the story through tone, texture, value, movement.
Vincent Van Gogh was an expressionist painter, as was Edgar's Munch and Wassily Kandinsky and the art of expressionism or abstract expressionism can be found in varying creative fields - dance, poetry...it was a movement from the 20th Century with many artists today still continuing on with the process.
Expressionist artists try to evoke powerful emotions in their artwork thus eliciting the same emotions from the viewer. Often vivid colours, or cold lines are found in expressionist pieces and it is intended to evoke a response from the viewer.
Try this expressionist exercise with lots of room and a big drop sheet -
Using a raw un-stretched canvas if possible, move your canvas or paper to the floor to work on and use a big open space.
Using paints which you have watered down, or are thick but you have a lot of, use your whole body to expressively and instinctively put the paint onto the canvas with a large brush, or flicking actions.
Use movement and Theo whole use of your body, or hands to spread paint across the whole canvas, connecting with the colours, shapes and textures which are being created to help the piece evolve.
ARTIST INFLUENCE
WASSILY KANDINKSKY
Farbstudie quadrate iii
Colour was more than a visual component for painter Wassily Kandinksky. They acted like a poetic of interaction, he spoke a lot about seeing sounds in colours, and hearing them.
Circles represented balance, order, symmetry. He worked with a spiritual approach focusing more on the internal process and influencing abstract expressionism as we know it today.
