Arnold Whittick

Quote:
Expressionism is in a sense the counterpart in Germany to Post Impressionism in England. Although they are different in character they are both parts of the movement, which began as a reaction from Impressionism. Impressionism is concerned essentially with the appearance of things, with visual images, patches of colour and tone, and effects of light without reference to their experienced reality. Dissatisfied with this attitude to the visual world, artists like Ctzanne and Van Gogh wanted to express not only the mere appearance of objects, but their essential character, and to emphasize their reality as objects in space. Van Gogh, one of the great inspirations of the German Expressionists, not only expresses character, but represents landscape with an inspired feeling for the growth and the life of things. The difference between Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, or Expressionists, may be indicated most clearly by reference to philosophical definitions. When we first see an object we really see only a coloured shape. This mode of perception is called in the phraseology of A. N. Whitehead,l[Symbolism: its Meaning and Effect (Cambridge, 1928), pp. 20 et seq. ] 'presentational immediacy.' (p.38-->) We refer this coloured shape to our visual experience, and from the store of images in our minds we connect it with an object, say a table. This second mode of perception is called 'causal efficacy'. With the first mode of perception we know only the coloured shape, not what it signifies, and it is this mode that is the starting point and main interest of the Impressionist. The second mode is concerned with the actual use or nature of the object-that the coloured shape is a table. The starting point of the Post-Impressionist is that the shape represents a solid object in space, and of the Expressionist that the shape has a character dependent on the subjective vision. The latter is, of course, partially the case with the Impressionist, but the Expressionist makes it more of a positive and exclusive purpose.… (more)