ABSTRACT

“An expressionist wants, above all, to express himself . . . The will of the new formulation necessitated synthesis rather than analysis, subjective transcript rather than objective description,” 1 wrote the Czech art theoretician Antonín Matějček (1889–1950) in 1910 in his introduction to the catalogue accompanying the exhibition Les Indépendants organized by the Mánes Association of Fine Artists. He thus became one of the first European critics to introduce the term “expressionism” into the terminology of art history. However, he was not applying it to some German artist, but rather to describe the works of the French postimpressionists featured in the exhibition. Around this time, apart from Matějček, only a few European critics were using the term expressionism in connection with the work of French artists, including the English critic Alan Clutton Brock and the Swedish theoretician Carl David Moselius. 2 For these critics, “expressionist” seemed the most appropriate way of describing the anti-naturalistic approach of the French postimpressionists and fauvists. 3