Conrad Felixmuller

The Expressionism movement in Germany embraces stylistic phenomena as disparate as the first abstract watercolors painted by Wassily Kandinsky around 1910 and the almost realist social driticism of the art of the Weimar period.
One has only to think of Conrad Felixmuller.
This in itself shows that Expressionism was not just a national stylistic phenomenon.
It was in fact a higly complex movement of cultural protest, wich sought to overturn the prevailing aestethic and social values on a universal scale.
It's purely stylistic charecteristics - however strong its predilection for sharp angles, distortions of form, or strong contrasts of color - remained secondary.
The common features that can be identified within its enormous formal diversity are more a matter of content: specifically they spring from its critique of contemporary civilization.
it was precisely when Expressionism began to use stereotyped formulas that its impulse began to wane, like that of a solidifying stream of Lava.

MMaxi