“Expressionism is a reaction against the atom-splitting of Impressionism, which reflects the iridescent ambiguities, disquieting diversity, and ephemeral hues of nature. At the same time Expressionism sets itself against Naturalism with its mania for recording more facts, and its paltry aim of photographing nature or daily life. The world is there for all to see; it would be absurd to reproduce it purely and simply as it is. The Expressionists also oppose the effeminacy of neo-Romanticism.
The Expressionist does not see, he has visions. The chain of facts: factories, houses, illness, prostitutes, screams, hunger does not exist; only the interior vision they provoke exists.”
–
über den Expressionismus by Kasimir Edschmid
Caligari and Metropolis: The Language of Weimar 