Why did Expressionist artists often depict anxiety and alienation in modern city life?

Expressionist artists depicted anxiety and alienation in modern city life as a direct response to the perceived ugliness, crude banality, and contradictions of the rapidly changing urban environment. Rather than capturing objective reality, these artists sought to express their subjective emotional responses—including fear, disgust, and a sense of frenetic intensity—to the modern world.12

Their work often served as a critique of the soullessness of modern technology and the dehumanizing effects of industrialization, where individuals felt subjugated to bureaucratic and mechanized forces. By employing distorted lines, jarring colors, and agitated, unstable compositions, Expressionists externalized the psychological toll of living in a society they viewed as increasingly fragmented and oppressive.31

Following the trauma of World War I, this focus on anxiety and alienation deepened, reflecting a broader postwar atmosphere of disillusionment and cynicism. Through these bold, expressive techniques, artists aimed to challenge the superficiality of academic art and provoke a transformation of consciousness in their audience, highlighting the precarious nature of individual identity within the modern city.13