THE DIFFERENCES

While both impressionism and expressionism began over more than 100 years ago in central Europe, the artistic styles are still present worldwide these days. Artists in Asia, Africa, and South America have given the artistic techniques and styles to their unique tradition. 

Impressionists like Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir are known for their flurried brushstrokes. Expressionists including Wassily Kandinsky and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, on the other hand, focused on vivid color and emotions. Find out if you prefer the spontaneity of Impressionism or the intensity of Expressionism?

Impressionism Characteristics

Impressionists experimented with color using a more optical method, mixing unblended pigments to create a nebulous blend of pure color. These artists also worked with short, hurried brushstrokes, often because they worked quickly outdoors. Impressionists also explored the theme of isolation in a newly crowded society through their subject’s gaze, which rarely met those of others in the same scene. Similarly, artists would also add physical barriers, such as balconies and bars, between subjects in their composition.

“Grainstack (Sunset)” (1890-91), Claude Monet.

Expressionism Characteristics

Expressionists used bold, solid hues and gestural brushstrokes to convey extreme emotions. Wassily Kandinsky even assigned colors to different feelings (red for joy, yellow for anger, etc.). These artists used arbitrary colors in their works, meaning subjects were depicted in colors that had no natural relation to them (a green face, an orange sky, etc.). Their distorted subjects also illustrated new anxieties and isolation in urban life.

“Street, Dresden” (1908), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.