SO MUCH ENERGY - SUCH STRONG COLOURS
Well, after « The Orient Express » - see previous chapter - the TGV to Zurich was a little tame. Still it’s fast - most of the time and comfortable. I was off to see this……. « From Matisse to the Blue Rider - Expressionism in Germany and France ». Sure I had booked months ago and was impatient to get back to something I really enjoy. Today, ’Expressionism’ is generally viewed as a German movement – yet in fact it emerged at the start of the 20th century from the enthusiastic groups of German artists with Classical Modernism in France. "Van Gogh struck modern art like a bolt of lightning," was how one German observer described the painter’s impact on German artists – at a time when they were already coming to terms with Seurat, Signac and the Neo-Impressionists. Then followed Gauguin, Cézanne and Matisse. The response by the artists of ’Die Brücke’ ( 1905-1913) and ’Der Blaue Reiter’ (1911-1913) to French Neo-Impressionism and the ’Fauves’ (1904-1908) was a veritable