Distorted forms and modern emotions · 1890 -1925

From Munch to Kollwitz and Klee, color, line and distortion no longer only describe the world: they make visible anguish, mourning and isolation.

Expressionism puts inner experience before the faithful appearance of the world. Beginning in the 1890s, Edvard Munch explored love, jealousy, loneliness, illness and death in images where lines wave and faces almost become signs. In the early 20th century, German and Central European artists accentuated clashing colors, unstable perspectives, and simplified shapes to address the anxiety of modern life. The first war mondiale and its aftermath give death a new presence. Käthe Kollwitz shows the mourning of mothers, the poverty and vulnerability of children with an intensity often constructed by blackness, gesture and contact with bodies. Paul Klee sometimes chooses a more elliptical path: a title, a few signs and a muted color are enough to evoke separation or cemetery. These works do not seek to illustrate an emotion; they make the very surface of the painting the place where emotion acts. The selection "Anxiety, solitude and death in expressionism" notably compares Woman with dead child - Käthe Kollwitz and Girl in mourning - Paul Klee. His reading favors drawing.

In expressionism, the outside world bends to emotion: color screams, line trembles, and space becomes the echo of loneliness.