3 Review(s)

New Perspectives on Bruecke Expressionism: Bridging History brings together highly-renowned international art historians in a scholarly work that offers the first full-length reassessment in English of the importance of the Bruecke group to German modernism specifically and to international modernism more generally. It challenges, interrogates and updates existing orthodoxies in the field of Bruecke studies by deploying new research combined with innovative interpretative approaches. This is an exciting volume of essays with an interlinking tripartite structure that charts the significance of this pioneering German avant-garde group in relation to various critical themes, namely, 'cultural and material identity', 'collectivity and selfhood', as well as 'defamation and rehabilitation'. The book is unique in the field in that it seeks to excavate specific historical research relating to the activities of the Bruecke as a bohemian yet nonetheless enterprising artists' community, and considers the contributions of the key members in relation to the dynamics of that group rather than simply on an individual basis. It thoroughly explores the historiography of the Bruecke artists' reception throughout the turbulent history of the twentieth century up until the present day.