20th C Expressionism, Klimt, Munch, and Kirchner

 

 

One of the changes in the 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s, especially the anxiety that came with modern life. Romantic and Symbolist painters explored some of these ideas through supernatural subjects. Henry Fuseli, a Romantic painter, made a well-known painting where a woman is shown asleep, possibly under the effects of laudanum, a drug made from opium. She’s having what looks like a nightmare, where she feels like she can’t breathe. The painting includes a small creature sitting on her chest and a ghostly figure in the shadows. It’s a literal image of sleep paralysis, a condition where a person is awake but can’t move and often feels pressure on their chest.

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In another painting, there’s a woman who appears to be asleep or turning her head, while spirits—possibly her ancestors—look on. The presence of these ghostly figures adds to the feeling that something spiritual or supernatural is happening.

 

Paul Gauguin, a Post-Impressionist, traveled to Tahiti in the 1890s. He left Europe during a time when many people were turning away from religion and traditional beliefs. Gauguin said he was looking for something more instinctive and spiritual. In some of his Tahitian paintings, figures appear surrounded by symbols of death or are being watched by shadowy figures. The presence of spirits in his work suggests a belief in the supernatural, not necessarily a fear of death, but more a sense of death being nearby. These themes are part of a long tradition in European art known as memento mori, which are reminders of death.

Both artists were working at a time when people were becoming more uneasy with changes in society—especially changes related to science, urban life, and new technology. These feelings show up in their art as isolation, supernatural imagery, and themes of death.

Here’s a quote from Edvard Munch: “For as long as I can remember, I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety, which I have tried to express in my art. Without anxiety and illness, I should have been like a ship without a rudder.” While that’s Munch talking about his own work, the painting we’re looking at is actually by Gustav Klimt. Klimt wasn’t as openly emotional or melancholic as Munch, but his paintings still deal with some of the same ideas—especially the tension between life and death.

In this painting, you can clearly see a division: on one side, there’s a figure with a skull-like face, representing death. On the other side, there’s a group of people—women, children—wrapped in colorful, patterned fabrics, which seem to flow together like a current. Klimt lived in Vienna around the turn of the 20th century, when the city was full of artistic and intellectual energy. Composers like Gustav Mahler were performing there, and the whole place was filled with cultural activity. But alongside all that creativity, Vienna was also experiencing the pressure of modernization—things like railroads, expanding cities, and new inventions were reshaping how people lived. These changes may have influenced Klimt’s paintings, just like they shaped the work of earlier artists like Munch and Fuseli.

In this painting, the idea of memento mori—a reminder of death—comes through in the way the figures are arranged. Death stands to one side, wrapped in a robe covered in small crosses. The way the robe is designed—with sharp angles and hard lines—feels very different from the curved shapes and soft forms in the rest of the painting. The other side is filled with sleeping or resting figures, often embracing, surrounded by flat, decorative patterns that resemble textiles.

At the time, factory-made fabrics were common, and mass production had changed how people dressed and decorated their homes. Klimt includes lots of these patterns in his work. Instead of creating a traditional, realistic space with shading and depth—chiaroscuro—he uses flat shapes and layered designs. The background looks almost like a diagram, with a cartoon-like quality.

The designs in the fabrics also seem to mark gender differences. Round, flowing shapes are often used for women, while the square or angular ones tend to go with men. There’s a lot going on here—ideas about gender, death, maybe religion, too. The figure of death even holds a kind of staff or candlestick, though it’s not totally clear what it is. The crosses on the robe might be linked to religion or ritual.

Klimt was working during a time when photography had already been around for decades. Artists were no longer expected to paint only what the eye could see. He had to find new ways to make his art meaningful. His work often combines themes of love, sex, death, and the passage of time.

One of his most famous paintings, The Kiss, brings these ideas together again. It’s been copied and referenced a lot over the years. In it, he continues exploring how patterns, color, and simplified forms can carry meaning in a world that was quickly changing.

In Edvard Munch’s painting, one of the first things to notice is that there’s not much depth in the space. The background and figures feel flat, almost like they were arranged without following real perspective. This style is similar to Byzantine art or old religious manuscripts, where the focus wasn’t on realistic space but on getting ideas across in a more symbolic or direct way. Munch, like Gustav Klimt and the Impressionists before him, was also influenced by Japanese woodblock prints, which often flatten space and emphasize bold outlines and surface patterns.

Klimt used shapes and geometry to organize his paintings. In The Kiss, for example, the gold background has small squares and dots scattered across it. The patch of ground under the figures looks like a flower bed, made of circular and organic shapes. The female figure is covered in rounded patterns, while the male figure’s robe has more rectangular blocks. These shapes seem to stand in for gender—curved for women, squared-off for men.

Even though the painting is called The Kiss, there’s some tension in the way the two figures are posed. The man is holding the woman tightly, and her head is tilted back in a way that feels stiff or even strained. It’s often read as romantic, but there’s a kind of intensity or force behind it that could be seen as aggressive. This reflects a broader mood at the start of the 1900s, when ideas about love and sexuality were shifting, and anxiety was starting to appear more openly in art.

Klimt saw himself as part of the Secessionist movement, a group of artists in Vienna who wanted to break away from older traditions. Some people connect his work with Art Nouveau, which focused on decorative styles and flowing lines, but Klimt’s art doesn’t always fit neatly into that category. He was responding to new ideas and influences, including changes in how people thought about the mind. Sigmund Freud, who lived in Vienna at the same time, was writing about psychology, dreams, and the unconscious.

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20th Century Architecture Modernism Bauhaus DeStijl and International Style

 

 

In the early 20th century, new styles of architecture began to take shape. To understand them, it helps to look at what came before. During the mid-1800s, Paris went through a major reconstruction led by Baron Haussmann. Parts of the city were redesigned, and buildings began to use factory-made components like wrought iron and cast iron fixtures. Windows and other parts of buildings were being produced in standardized sizes off-site, marking a shift toward modular construction.

 

Before this, there were other structures that hinted at where architecture might be heading. For example, the Crystal Palace designed by Joseph Paxton (not Sir Walter) for the 1851 Great Exhibition was a large glass and iron structure that looked like a greenhouse. It included some decoration that drew from classical styles. Around the same time, projects like the Brooklyn Bridge and the Eiffel Tower also explored new engineering and structural possibilities using iron and steel.

 

By the time industrialization had fully taken hold, architects began thinking differently about how buildings should look and function. Factories, in particular, didn’t need much decoration. Instead, they prioritized open space and efficiency. Materials like steel I-beams, reinforced concrete with rebar, and large poured concrete slabs made it possible to create wide, open floors supported by internal columns instead of load-bearing exterior walls. This meant that entire walls could be made of windows—even the corners—letting in large amounts of natural light.

Architects Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer took advantage of this in their design for the Fagus Factory. The open floor plan and glass curtain walls weren’t just practical; they also marked a shift in architectural thinking. With electricity and industrial machinery becoming common, factories needed big, well-lit interiors. It made more sense to use daylight than rely only on electric or arc lighting.

As more people saw buildings like the Fagus Factory, the idea of decorating them with classical elements like Ionic, Doric, or Corinthian columns started to seem unnecessary. This change in architecture paralleled shifts in other art forms. Around the same time, painters were also moving away from traditional forms. Styles like Cubism, and later, Suprematism from artists like Kazimir Malevich and abstract work from Wassily Kandinsky, emphasized shapes, space, and simplicity over detailed representation.

Walter Gropius and other German architects around the early 20th century developed a new kind of school focused on a design approach where form and function were closely connected. This idea—form follows function—shaped the foundation of the Bauhaus School. The Bauhaus wasn’t just an art or design school. It also worked like a factory and lab, combining teaching with hands-on making. It used the same kinds of industrial construction techniques seen in the Fagus Factory, like reinforced concrete and curtain walls made of glass that wrapped around the building and met at the corners. These features let in a lot of natural light.

 

Inside, the building was made to be flexible. Just like school cafeterias or gyms today sometimes use movable dividers, the Bauhaus building had spaces that could be rearranged easily. Electrical wiring and power lines were built into the floors and ceilings, and many pieces of equipment were on wheels. This setup made it possible to switch between different kinds of classes or workshops quickly, just by opening or closing walls and moving tools around.

This approach to architecture and space design influenced the way objects were made too. Industrial design became part of the school's main focus. One of the ideas behind the Bauhaus was that past styles and historical design traditions didn’t need to be followed anymore. Instead, students were encouraged to develop new ideas based on how things are actually built and used. They didn’t spend time learning classical architecture styles like Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian orders. Instead, they studied how materials, manufacturing, and use could shape design.

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At the same time in painting and visual art, movements like Dada, Cubism, and Suprematism also pushed away from past traditions. Artists like Pablo Picasso, Kazimir Malevich, and Wassily Kandinsky, along with the Der Blaue Reiter group, wanted to create art that didn’t rely on earlier styles. They experimented with new ways of seeing and making, just like the Bauhaus did in design.

One example of this Bauhaus approach to object design is a chair by Marcel Breuer. He designed it using steel tubing, like what was used in bicycles. It reflects the same focus on industrial materials, function, and clean design. Today, original versions of that chair are rare and can be very expensive, but the design remains an example of how the Bauhaus combined everyday function with new forms.

 

The chair designed by Marcel Breuer is made from lightweight metal tubing—usually aluminum or chromed steel—with strips of leather or synthetic fabric stretched across the frame. These strips are placed to support key pressure points on the body, like where you sit and where your back rests. The idea wasn’t to make the chair look soft or fully cushioned, but to support the body where it actually needed it. This was an early version of what we now think of as office ergonomics—design that helps people sit or work comfortably for long periods. When people shop for office chairs today, they often look for lumbar support or adjustable features. This chair was one of the first to focus on those practical details instead of how padded or decorative it looked.

The chair also avoids classical ornament. There are no carvings, scrolls, or historical references in its design. It's stripped down to just what it needs to function—no extra parts, no decoration.

This kind of modern design was not supported by fascist governments in the 1930s. In Germany, when the Nazi party rose to power, and in Italy under Mussolini, there was a push to bring back styles linked to the Roman Empire. Leaders in those countries believed that buildings and objects with classical features—columns, arches, and stone facades—symbolized national strength and tradition. Because of that, modern styles like the ones promoted by the Bauhaus were rejected. They were labeled as degenerate and were banned or discouraged.

As a result, many architects and designers from the Bauhaus left Germany. Some moved to the United States and other countries, where they continued working and teaching. This helped spread the Bauhaus ideas and made modernist design much more common outside of Europe, especially in American architecture and furniture design.

One of my students once said that a lot of what the Bauhaus made looks like stuff from IKEA. And honestly, that comparison isn’t far off. Years ago, when I first started teaching this class, I used to think about how you could find really nicely designed things at stores like Target and IKEA—things that looked good and were affordable. Back when Target was getting popular, maybe twenty years ago, I remember noticing how many of their home items had a clean, simple look. It was surprising that good design could come at such a low price.

That same idea shows up in the Bauhaus. A lot of their designs used basic, easy-to-find materials like glass, plexiglass, chrome, and rubber. These materials could be shaped and produced by machines, which meant they didn’t need hand-carving or extra detail. Without added ornamentation, they were simpler and cheaper to manufacture. A machine could shape the curves and lines without a lot of effort, and that kept costs low. But even though these objects were industrially made, a lot of thought went into how they were designed before production started.

That’s one of the main ideas behind the Bauhaus approach—blending function and form. The design needs to be useful, but it also has to look good. Most of the things that came out of the Bauhaus had smooth curves and were based on simple shapes like circles, squares, and straight lines. The materials were clean and easy to maintain, and when polished or finished properly, they had a sleek look. The designs were meant to be practical, easy to make, and still have a sense of style.

 

The Bauhaus style is closely connected to the kind of abstract painting that was being developed in the early 20th century. One artist who really shows a lot of the same ideas is Piet Mondrian, a Dutch painter. His work used straight lines, blocks of color, and simple shapes, and it lines up well with the kind of thinking you see in Bauhaus design. His paintings are also a good example of what’s called modernism in architecture and design—sometimes also called the International Style.

If you ever need to remember the different styles we’re talking about—Bauhaus, the International Style, and even other related ones like De Stijl (sometimes pronounced distile or distil)—it’s usually okay to group them all under the larger term modernism. That word works as a kind of umbrella for all these related movements. Each one has its own features, but they all share the idea that design should be simple, functional, and shaped by modern materials and technology.

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MOMA

19th C Rodin

 

 

Rodin was born in 1840 into a working-class family in Paris. His father worked as a police officer. As a young man, Rodin studied drawing and eventually got into art school, though he struggled to get accepted into the more prestigious École des Beaux-Arts.

He spent much of his life with a woman named Rose Beuret. They lived together for decades but didn’t marry until shortly before her death in 1917. During that time, he also had a long relationship with another sculptor, Camille Claudel, which lasted around ten to fifteen years. Their relationship was intense and complicated, and she had a major influence on his work.

 

Rodin started his career in 1864, working in the studio of a sculptor named Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse. He submitted works to the Salon, the official art exhibition of the French Academy, but many of his early pieces were rejected. Still, he kept at it and continued developing his style.

In 1875, when he was thirty-five, Rodin traveled to Italy. That trip was important for him. He studied works by Michelangelo and ancient Roman sculptures, and it had a strong effect on how he thought about form and the human body. You can see this influence in his later work, especially in how he handled muscle, movement, and dramatic poses.

Rodin’s work was also shaped by the ideas floating around in 19th-century France. A lot of artists and writers were looking back to earlier figures like Dante, whose Divine Comedy inspired some of Rodin’s most famous work, and to Renaissance artists like Michelangelo. Fragments of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures were also big sources of inspiration at the time.

One artist who had a noticeable impact on Rodin, even though he wasn’t his teacher, was Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. Carpeaux worked in a more expressive style and paid close attention to emotion and motion in his figures. His approach was part of a wider trend in French art and literature during the late 1700s and early 1800s, which focused more on feeling and drama than on calm, classical balance.

Rodin came out of this environment, mixing old ideas with new approaches, and he brought that combination into his sculpture.

Dante wrote The Divine Comedy in the late 1200s, just before the year 1300. In 19th-century France, there was renewed interest in his work. People began reading Dante again, especially his Inferno, as part of a larger return to classical literature. This was tied to the way schools and artists were focusing on older texts as sources of inspiration.

One of the stories in Inferno, found in Canto 33, was especially well-known. It’s about Count Ugolino, a man from Pisa who was involved in political struggles between two rival groups, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Ugolino was arrested by his enemies and locked in a tower with his sons and grandsons. All of them starved to death. According to Dante, Ugolino was so desperate that he may have eaten the bodies of his dead children to survive.

 

In Dante’s story, Ugolino appears deep in Hell, in a frozen region where traitors are punished. He is shown gnawing on the head of Archbishop Ruggieri, the man who betrayed him. The text includes a scene where Ugolino’s children offer their bodies to him before they die, thinking he is biting his own hands out of hunger.

This moment from Inferno shows up in Rodin’s sculpture Ugolino and His Sons. The figures are twisted and muscular, with a lot of tension in their bodies. The sculpture draws from older works like the Laocoön Group, a classical sculpture from ancient Rome, and from the style of Michelangelo, especially in the way the human body is carved with exaggerated movement and emotion.

 

Rodin, like many artists of his time, was influenced by Renaissance art and literature. He also looked closely at how earlier artists in Florence—like Michelangelo—handled mythological and religious subjects. These influences shaped the way Rodin approached form and storytelling in his sculptures.

One more thing to keep in mind: Dante was one of the first major poets to write in vernacular Italian—the everyday language spoken by people in Florence. Before him, most serious literature was written in Latin. His descriptions of Hell, Heaven, and Purgatory weren’t taken from the Bible, but a lot of people over time confused them with religious doctrine. His work helped shape how later artists and writers thought about these ideas, and in the 1800s, that influence came back into focus again, especially in France, where classical and romantic education overlapped.

 

Rodin exhibited one of his first major sculptures at the Salon in 1877 when he was thirty-six. The piece was originally titled The Vanquished. It’s often connected to themes of war and possibly to events from the Franco-Prussian War, which had ended a few years earlier in 1871. Later, Rodin renamed it The Age of Bronze. When it was shown, critics accused him of using moulage, a French term for body casting. That meant they thought he had made the sculpture by directly casting a live model’s body instead of sculpting it by hand.

Rodin denied this and brought in the model he had used—Auguste Neyt, a Belgian soldier—as proof. He also showed photographs of Neyt to demonstrate that the sculpture was based on close observation, not casting. Some reports even say the model posed nude next to the sculpture during the controversy.

The sculpture shows a nude male figure in a relaxed stance with one arm raised. It shares visual qualities with ancient Greek works, especially the Doryphoros by Polykleitos, known for its contrapposto pose. It also has features similar to Hellenistic sculptures and even the work of Praxiteles. But after the controversy, Rodin seemed to shift direction. He began moving away from classical polish, possibly to avoid being accused of simply copying the old masters or being too skilled in a traditional way.

One of the clearest examples of this change is Saint John the Baptist Preaching. Rodin made it soon after The Age of Bronze. The sculpture shows John in a rough, muscular form, walking forward with one arm raised. He’s not posed in a standard contrapposto stance. His feet are planted wide apart, and there’s a twist to his body that doesn’t follow classical balance.

Critics at the time commented on how unusual the pose was. They asked whether the figure was walking or standing still. His arms and body don’t match standard poses from earlier sculpture. Rodin was likely trying to create a feeling of movement, something closer to what we see in late Hellenistic art. The surface of the bronze is rough, with deep shadows and raised textures. This kind of surface treatment catches the light in small patches and hollows. While Rodin wasn’t part of the Impressionist movement, the way his surfaces interact with light feels similar to how Impressionist painters used visible brushstrokes to show light and movement.

Rodin also exaggerated parts of the body. Hands and feet are often larger than normal. The eyes are deeply carved, and noses may be a bit oversized. These distortions aren’t realistic, but they add to the energy and presence of the figure.

Later in his career, Rodin returned to this sculpture. About twenty years after making Saint John the Baptist, he re-used the same pose in a different work. He removed the arms and head, roughened the surface even more, and cast it in a rougher version. This practice of reworking earlier figures was common for Rodin. He often recycled elements, making new versions that were more abstract.

This kind of reduction—removing parts and focusing on the shape and gesture—lines up with ideas that were beginning to appear in early 20th-century modernism. Around this time, artists like Picasso were simplifying forms and exploring abstraction. Rodin said he was trying to give only the essence of the sculpture. Antique sculpture fragments may have influenced this approach, as broken statues from ancient times were often admired for their form and texture.

 

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