expressionism

n. 20th century art movement stressing the expression of subjective experience rather than a literal representation of reality

Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect; it is a subjective art form. Expressionism is exhibited in many art forms, including painting, literature, theatre, film, architecture and music. Additionally, the term often implies emotional angst – the number of cheerful expressionist works is relatively small.
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Noun
1. an art movement early in the 20th century; the artist's subjective expression of inner experiences was emphasized; an inner feeling was expressed through a distorted rendition of reality
(hypernym) artistic movement, art movement
(hyponym) neoexpressionism

1905 - 1940 european art movement favoring subjective impressions, employing strong colors and sharp contours - dominant in german movements Die Bruecke and Blauer Reiter - influenced by cubism , fauvism and symbolism 

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Synonyms and related words:
abstractionism, coloring, deformation, distortion, exaggeration, false coloring, falsification, garbling, hyperbole, inaccuracy, injustice, litotes, miscoloring, misdrawing, mispainting, misquotation, misreport, misrepresentation, misstatement, misteaching, nonrealism, overdrawing, overstatement, perversion, slanting, twisting, understatement