I’ve been trying to paint in a more expressive, almost raw way lately, but everything I make just ends up looking like a bad copy of a German Expressionist piece. I keep thinking about how Neue Sachlichkeit must have felt like such a deliberate turn away from that kind of emotional intensity, toward something cooler. I wonder if anyone else has hit a wall where their own style just feels like an unconvincing echo of a movement they admire.
I hear you the urge to be expressive can feel like chasing a ghost and sometimes the chase is the point even if the result lands rough.
Maybe the knot is not the move but the need behind the stroke the expressive impulse trying to carry gravity into paint.
Neue Sachlichkeit does not only equal cool restraint it can feel like a map with many quiet streets and you may be after a different kind of warmth.
I get a skeptical nudge here maybe you are blaming the movement when the real friction is your own preset expectations.
Reframe this for a moment what if the issue is not copying a movement but learning the pace of your own hand and letting the painting decide what to be.
Try a playful constraint a small color limit or a single brush and let the expressive urge ride that limit rather than fight it.