Primitive Renaissance: Rethinking German Expressionism. By David Pan. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. Pp. xii+ 230; 6 illustrations. $ 49.95.

Let me start by saying what David Pan's compelling reassessment of expressionism does not do: Primitive Renaissance does not primarily provide new readings or interpretations of expressionist works of art, and its author is also not interested in revisiting the formal aspects of expressionism. Rather, Pan argues for the philosophical foundation of expressionism in primitivism and its practitioners' stance against the modernist project. "[T]wentieth-century aesthetic movements did not develop as an accompaniment to modernity but as a reaction to and revolt against it," he insists (p. 3). Drawing on the works of Nietzsche, Benjamin, Freud, Kandinsky, and Carl Einstein, Pan's study explores primitivism as a response to the aesthetic as well as the social consequences of modernity. Pan's interest in the philosophical underpinnings of expressionism becomes evident from his choice of authorities, the first three of whom one would not ordinarily associate with expressionism while many of the better known expressionist artists are not discussed in this book. The attraction of primitivism as a reaction against modernity thus precedes the expressionists, who subsequently incorporated philosophies informed by primitivism into their works of art.

Katharina Gerstenberger
University of Cincinnati