Toolkit 2 - Character Design: Research

  Working though my categories, I feel that understanding 1930's german expressionism would be the key to getting my character right. I have gathered some images and research to help me gain a grip on expressionism.

   1930's german expressionism focused on moving away from replicating reality, and empathizing on emotions. This was created through the use of bright colour, stark brush lines and broad gestures. However, there was two main movements under german expressionism, these was known as Die Bruck (the Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)

 Die Bruck - This subcategory (and the largest) took elements of traditional german art and incorporated African/ South Pacific tribal personas. Also placed in the mix was Post-Impressionism and Fauvism. 

  (Post-Impressionism - A french art form that rejects the limitations of impressionism but applying empathise on geometric forms, real-life matter and expressive brush strokes. Some well known artists of this movement where Paul Cezanne, Van Gogh and Henri Rousseau).

  (Fauvism - Uses fierce brushworks and colours to capture emotions, as seen in the works of Henri Matisse)

  The main establishing artists of the Bruch divide is Ernest Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Erich Heckel and Otto Muller. Other famous artist joined this movement in later periods, such as Emil Nolde. 

   Der Blaue Reiter - This was a Avant-garde movement in munich during the 1910's, and their aim  explore spiritual truth though art. This was captured through spiritual association with symbolism and colour.  The main founding artists was Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. In later periods artist such as Paul Klee, August Macke, Gabriele Munter and Marianne von Werefkin joined. However, this expressive movement was broken up during the beginning of WW1, lasting only 3 years.

1930's Expressionism in Art

   As with art, German expressionism was seen though film. Censorship though the war meant that the german film industry was able to boom, and its main area of focus was the human psychologies. Exploring this area brought about establishing the horror genre, influencing many films today.

  With this in mind,  I decided to also look into movie posters and the makeup of film sets. Currently I only have a mood board for the movie posters, but will make one for the sets. 

  Some well known German Expressive films are; Nerves (1919), The Cabinet of Dr Caligari ( 1920), From Morn to Midnight (1920), The Golem (1920), Nosferatu (1922), Faust (1926(, The Cat and the Canary (1927), Metropolis (1927), M (1931) and many more.