Reactions to Modern Artists

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Reactions of Modern Artists Throughout the early 20th century, major social and political incidents caused artists to shed their light and opinions. The rise of fascism, the World Wars and other haunting images of the Modern era were all topics that artists felt they needed to speak out about. Artists such as Pablo Picasso, Max Beckman, and many other expressionists showed their reactions towards these events by expressing themselves in their works and in turn shared their views with the people. These Modernist expressionists developed new styles to help show their reactions in a different way. With these new styles, artists were able to express themselves fully and truly show others how they felt. World War I was one of the first major events in the 20th century. The effects that it had on the world were widespread and so was the destruction. There was a huge outcry for the war to stop as the war dragged on. Pope Benedict XV called it “The suicide of civilized Europe.” It affected nearly every aspect of society, including the arts. Many artists who were present on the battlefields depicted what they saw in their works. Legendary artists such as Max Beckman, Otto Dix, and Ernst Kirchner, all soldiers in the war, depicted their experiences in graphic detail. These German expressionists helped influence later movements and had an enormous effect on the inter-war period of 1920 to 1939. Max Beckman is one of the recognized German expressionists and is well known for his paintings depicting social issues of his time. He studied art in the German city of Weimar from 1900 to 1993. After his artistic education, Beckman traveled to Paris to study how the famous French painters painted. By 1911, Beckman had become a famous artist and he even had a major exhibition in Frankfurt. At this time, Beckman’s art was particularly conservative and he bashed
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