Uprising
Lyonel Feininger
American, 1871–1956
1910
An oil on canvas from 1910 in which Lyonel Feininger stages a chaotic street uprising, using exaggerated gestures and simplified forms to express the emotional charge of collective violence rather than literal reportage.
What hits you first is the fevered motion—elongated, dance‑like figures in saturated blues, oranges, and greens surge past a flattened pale house beneath a bruised red sky, the whole scene pitched forward as if the street itself were collapsing into movement.
An early example of German Expressionism, the painting fuses caricature and modernist abstraction to translate social unrest into color and form, prefiguring the crystalline townscapes and teaching practice Feininger later brought to the Bauhaus.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
41 1/8 x 37 5/8" (104.4 x 95.4 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Julia Feininger
Accession
257.1964
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
