Expressionist Artists

Explore the work discussed in the video below. Click the thumbnail to expand.

Expressionist artists emphasized the communication of emotion through distortions of color, surface, and form. Marsden Hartley worked through a number of modernist styles, but his greatest affinity was for Expressionism, and it came to the fore in his series of “Recollections” of the landscape of New Mexico, where Hartley lived for 18 months in 1918-19. Hartley’s landscapes suggest a brooding spirit. By contrast, Birger Sandzén’s views of the West, filled with brilliant color and lavish brushwork, practically burst with pure joy.