The Blaue Reiter

by Hajo Düchting

Riders on the storm: The charge of 20th century expressionismAlthough it only lasted three turbulent years, the afterburn of Der Blaue Reiter (1911 1914) movement exerted a tremendous influence on the development of modern European art. Named after a Kandinsky painting, The Blue Rider, this loose band of artists, grouped around Russian emigre Wassily Kandinsky and German painter Franz Marc, sought to reject establishment standards and charge into a new artistic unknown.Articulating spiritual values and concerns in an era of rapid industrialization, the artists of Der Blaue Reiter were connected by a shared interest in painting, woodcuts, and prints, as well as the symbolic values of color and spontaneous approaches to artwork. Key pieces such as Kandinsky s Picture with an Archer (1909), August Macke s Lady in a Park (1914), and Franz Marc s The World Cow (1913) reveal varying subjects, but all channel distorted perspectives, crude lines, and an emphatic, expressionist use of color.Der Blaue Reiter was abruptly truncated by the onset of the First World War, which killed two of its leading artists, along with growing dissent between the group s protagonists. This book reveals the movement s remarkable influence despite its brevity, presenting key works, artists, and their reverberating effects.About the series: Each book in TASCHEN s Basic Genre series features: approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions a detailed illustrated introduction plus a timeline of the most important political, cultural, and social events that took place during that period a selection of the most important works of the epoch, each presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and accompanying interpretation, as well as a portrait and brief biography of the artist"

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, History

95 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a delight to all who like German Expressionist art and particularly The Blue Reiter group of German artists.

This group wanted to express the sense of alienation that people in Germany were feeling after WWI. Attributes include rich, deep color of people, but often abstract form.

This book analyzes various works with backgrounds of the individual artists.

Like all Taschen, this book is printed on quality paper with nice, large photos that are all in color.

[Ellen Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

if you know my taste in art, you will know I liked this. on the edge of abstraction, lots of color, organic shapes. the main artists featured were Kandinsky and Franz Marc. I'm a bit bored with Kand. and his theories and scribbles. But I saw much more of Marc than I'd ever seen before and loved it. Well-written overview, esp at the beginning, low on the jargon scale. Each repro has a short essay too.