When reading about expressionism, my mind became very confused. The words, used to describe what these artists were trying to convey, seemed to only partially translate the essence of expressionism. This perhaps is the folly of language, and the users of language, which can only go so far in articulating what is clearly beyond the realm of descriptive words and emotive phrasing. Like speaking through a stain glass window, the meaning became muffled in words and the artist’s heart, so desperate to share what it felt, fell victim to the harsh constraints of human vocabulary. As I read, I was left with a feeling that there was more to be understood. However, it was not my level of grammar and literary understanding that created this lacking, but the limits of grammar itself (some things simply cannot be expressed through words). The words began picking away at something, the buried meaning of expressionism perhaps, yet they could not reach the core. The irony in this, is that expressionism is the eternal quest of peeling, picking, and digging away from the apparent to find the core complexities beneath. More ironically still, the fact that I have to write a paper on this topic means that I will have to strive to do the same. Perhaps this is the blight that plagues all writers. In a human, the core of our being has often been deemed the “soul”. The soul is the raw, voracious, untamed truth that strives to claw its way up into the world of the physical, and out through the mantle and crust of the human body. It is the curse of the soul to eternally strive to reveal itself to the world of the material. In

contrast, it is the nature of the material world to mask, obscure, and bury the soul. It is this perpetual conflict between the soul and the material realm that leads to mankind’s’ greatest creations in art, literature, music, song, and dance. All are the contriving efforts of the soul to be released, and its mournful cries to enter a world in which it can never fully exist. I personally do not think any material creation can capture the essence of the soul in its entirety, rather, the arts are the imprints of the soul pounding away at the barriers to the physical. In this way, the soul leaves imprints of itself, while remaining in its non-physical realm.

     How did the soul get there in the first place? Many humans describe themselves as having a soul or a spirit. Often the soul is described as the core of one’s being. Scientists say that a soul is the electrons and synapses of one’s mind. To them a soul is your thoughts. They believe the soul is still in the realm of the physical regardless of its tangibility. To scientists, the soul is energy in various forms, continuously changing forms. To a scientist, art is the minds energy converted and translated into a tangible and visible form. In this interpretation, art is the minds reaction and retranslation of the world around it. Every feeling, sense, emotion, is converted to heat, electrical impulses, and various chemicals, which then are sent to the brain and retranslated into physical motion that can lead to the creation of music, painting, poetry, and other forms of art. In this translation, Expressionism is literally the way the brain expresses the world in its most basic of forms. But that is not what everyone believes. Many religions view the soul as something beyond the physical realm, yet housed in the physical body. To them, a soul does not cease to exist when the physical body dies. In Christianity, a human has the ability to reject the distractions of the physical, and accept a certain “Truth.” This rejection of the physical allows the soul to merge with the “Truth” and become something entirely new. Both interpretations are sufficient in explanation to different people. I personally find the latter to be more appealing because I find it more comfortable to view the soul as eternal.

     Regardless of how an individual chooses to view a soul, what has not been explain is why he the desire to create art, and why the process of creating art itself, is so strongly felt within. Art doesn’t necessarily have any noticeable biological benefit. From what I have seen, those individuals who become painters, often have a harder time finding mates. Do other animals on the earth notice the world and create art in the same way we humans do? I do not think so. Despite how much training was given, an elephant could not truly replicate the forms of expressionism, because all they understand is the apparent. Internal concepts of hate, love, jealousy, shame, compassion, would be difficult other organisms to translate into art. Other organisms often do not feel compelled to create art they way humans do. We paint to share something deeper with one another, to show something to the world that would be difficult to communicate without being translated into a visible form. We change our vocal wavelengths in songs to communicate what we feel within. Focusing on expressing the nature of the soul is what separates us from other organisms, and thus makes expressionism a, deeper and more powerful form of art.