The Ideological Crisis of Expressionism: The Literary and Artistic German War Colony in Belgium 1914-1918

by Rainer Rumold

This collection of thirteen new essays written by eminent European and American scholars examines in detail for the first time the literary, artistic, and political activities of the German Expressionistic war colony in occupied Belgium during World war I. The anthology illuminates a heretofore neglected area of artistic endeavour. In Brussels the poet Carl Einstein and the art critic Wilhelm Hausenstein were active, and Gottfried Benn was working as a medical officer; in Ostende, Henkel and Beckmann were part of the Kaesbach circle, a medical unit of artists. The studies show that Expressionism was a crisis phenomenon. Individual writers and artists responded to the moral andintellectual challenge of the War with a burst of creativity yet also with ideological indecision that had an effect on their art.

299 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1990