Brücke, Die

Organization of German Expressionist artists. It was founded in 1905 by four architectural students at the Dresden Technical School, including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, who were soon joined by other German and European artists. Its name reflects their hope that their work would be a bridge to the art of the future. Strongly influenced by primitive art, German Gothic woodcuts, and the prints of Edvard Munch, they produced figure paintings and portraits depicting human suffering and anxiety, as well as still lifes and landscapes characterized by harshly distorted shapes and violent colours. They contributed to the 20th-century revival of the woodcut. The group disbanded in 1913.

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