I have come to believe that the word “expression” (and its derivatives, such as “expressionist”) are misused frequently in relation to art. I suppose that this is understandable in the light of the adoption of this term by a particular artistic movement. It does seem to suggest, however, that in order to be considered “expressive” art needs to resemble the work of this specific tendency within modernism, that acquired its name primarily through its opposition to “impressionism”.
The term is very imprecise, and has come to refer to a very wide range of styles. Nevertheless, if one is looking for something that perhaps ties them together into a common tradition it is probably the notion that, in communicating emotion, painting ought to have some kind of mimetic character, in which gesture and colour relate very directly and immediately to the feelings that the artist wishes to convey. Consequently there tends to be a very vigorous and dramatic aspect to “expressionist” work, in which criteria such as draftsmanship or composition are subordinated to the requirement that the work imitates the state of feeling of the artist.
While I was painting this afternoon I began to wonder whether the idea of “expression” hasn’t been rather misappropriated here, and a work might be considered to be expressive even if it shuns the stylistic traits that are normally taken to be distinctively “expressionist”. The piece on which I am working at the moment is a reflection on a long-standing friendship, which partly involved a common interest and in and engagement with the Balkans. The side panels of the piece are made up of representations of pieces of folk textile from the region (in fact, from Macedonia and from Albania.) These are, to my mind, profoundly expressive in that they are characterised by a reliance upon pattern. This implies a kind of “orderliness” in the world, and the central part of the picture, having to do with rather disorderly emotions and events, is suspended between these two images of order.
I actually think that this tension between order and disorder is highly expressive, and certainly within the context of the picture is the pivot of its emotional force as well as being a compositional device. “It’s expressionism, Jim, but not as we know it.”