(movement, 1911 - 1914)
German expressionist art movement, lasting from 1911 to 1914. It took its name from a painting by Kandinsky, Le cavalier bleu. Following the Brücke artists of the previous decade, this second wave of expressionism was led by Kandinsky, Klee, Marc, and Macke, in Munich. They sought to discover spiritual truths that they felt the impressionists had overlooked. Less united stylistically and as a group than the Brücke, their art ranged from the pure abstractions of Kandinsky to the romantic imagery of Marc.
Artists:
German Expressionist group. In English, The Blue Rider. Originated in 1909 in the city of Munich, where the Neue Kunstler Vereiningung, or New Artist Association (N.K.V.) was founded by a number of avant-garde artists. The most important of these were the Russian born Wassily Kandinsky and the German, Franz Marc. In 1911 Kandinsky and Marc broke with the rest of the N.K.V. and in December that year held in Munich the first exhibition of Der Blaue Reiter...
Together with the Brücke (active in Dresden from 1905, and later in Berlin), Der Blaue Reiter group in Munich and Murnau was one of the most significant modernising elements in 20th century German art. In contrast to the Brücke, with its closely knit artistic and communal life-style, Der Blaue Reiter represented a somewhat loose association of differing artistic personalities. The two leading figures were Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, and the high points of the movement’s activities were its two exhibitions of 1911 and 1912, together with publication of the "Almanach Der Blaue Reiter" in 1912, a document that was later to become so famous...
