The influence of film on the “Brücke” group printmaking

In an attempt to define the directions of mutual influences between the expressionist art media of printmaking and film in early 20th century Germany, this work commences by arguing that expressionist film, made in the time of “mature silent film” (from the end of the World War I to the advent of sound film), arose within the context of influence of “the congenial current” in painting, literature, theatre and music (Peterlić). However, we shall explore the other direction – the influence that the film as new media has exerted on “traditional arts”. In this matter, the crucial shift in exploration seems to be the one where exploration’s gravity centre moves to the benefit of printmaking media. Namely – alongside drawing’s influence – the printmaking’s radical attitude acted as a carrier of “whose significance surpassed that of painting”. (M. Moeller). Also, we start from D. E. Gordon’s theoretical claims arguing that expressionist art emerged as an eclectic product of diverse influences. Employing the selected examples from the printmaking oeuvre of the “Brücke” group members, we have endeavoured to detect the modes of pictorialization of film language, and we have done so by reviewing film time and film space, montage procedure and narration. In this sense, we can speak of the influence that the early film has exerted on “the first big phase of expressionism”. This work suggests that when it comes to the expressionist “Brücke” group – especially in the medium of printmaking – the concern is the contemporaneity versus the film media, the latter’s expressive means being synchronous to the innovations in the expressive means of printmaking. In other words, the printmaking, on its innovative path from 1904 to the middle of the 1910s, has followed the comparable creative reaches of film. Of course, by saying this we wish to state that these influences came from those expressive means that were characteristic of film as new media, and not necessarily from a connection with expressionist film. We have analysed formal procedures and the gradual inclusion of observer’s position, both of which components are re-examined by modern art. The argumentation leads us towards a conclusion not only that printmaking has influenced film, but that the film in its early phase also essentially influenced printmaking