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German Expressionism

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GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM THEMES: NUDES

Nudes

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The Brücke artists rejected the idealized nudity and classical positions that were emphasized in the traditional art academies. Instead, they depicted the unrehearsed and uninhibited poses of their girlfriends or other young acquaintances in the studio or in nature. For them and other Expressionists, casual nudity and a frank sexuality were a reaction against the stiff bourgeois social mores of the day

The naked body and its potential to signify primal emotion was a core Expressionist theme. The Expressionists' drive to get at inner experience led them to study the ways that bodily gestures, postures, and facial expressions could communicate essential states of being.