German art
Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider") was started in Munich, Germany in 1911. Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin and others started the group (because, or) in response to the rejection of Kandinsky's painting Last Judgment from an exhibition by Neue Künstlervereinigung. (Kandinsky had been a member of that group.) The name Der Blaue Reiter came from Marc's enthusiasm for horses, and from Kandinsky's love of the colour blue. For Kandinsky, blue is the colour of spirituality; The darker the blue, the more it awakens human desire for the eternal (see his 1911 book On the Spiritual in Art). Kandinsky had also titled a painting Der Blaue Reiter in 1903. The intense sculpture and printmaking of Käthe Kollwitz was strongly influenced by Expressionism, which also formed the starting point for the young artists who went on to join other tendencies within the movements of the early 20th century.