Expressionism and Poster Design in Germany 1905–1922

Book excerpt: In Expressionism and Poster Design in Germany 1905–1925, Kathleen Chapman re-defines Expressionism by situating it in relation to the most common type of picture in public space during the Wilhelmine twentieth century, the commercial poster. Focusing equally on visual material and contemporaneous debates surrounding art, posters, and the image in general, this study reveals that conceptions of a “modern” image were characterized not so much by style or mode of production and distribution, but by a visual rhetoric designed to communicate more directly than words. As instances of such rhetoric, Expressionist art and posters emerge as equally significant examples of this modern image, demonstrating the interconnectedness of the aesthetic, the utilitarian, and the commercial in European modernism.