The Der Blaue Reiter movement was a German expressionist art period lasting from 1911 to 1914. The name Der Blaue Reiter was taken from one of Kandinsky’s works, Le Cavalier bleu. The movement was led by Kadinsky, Klee, Marc, and Macke – a group of expressionist artists greatly influenced by the Brucke artists of the previous decade – the Der Blaue Reiter did not believe in the main objective of the Brucke movement (simply focusing on one group of artists).
The Der Blaue Reiter artists attempted to find spiritual truths that they felt impressionists had not conveyed. The art movement was not stylistically unified as demonstrated by the range of pure abstractions created by Kadinsky versus the romantic images of Marc. The Der Blaue Reiter believed in changeability, new ideas, and the mixing of different ideas of spirituality and art.
