“表现主义”一词指的并不是象野兽派、立体派、旋涡派等一类的流派或运动,而且在二十世纪艺术文献中所赋予它的意义也不是一成不变的。“表现主义”最早是用来描绘那种以表现感情为其突出特征的艺术的。在约翰国·威利特的《表现主义》(1970年)一书里,他追溯到在1850年6月的《泰特爱丁堡杂志》上的一篇文章中查到了这一用法,其中谈到了“现代画家中的表现主义流派”;书中还提到 The term “expressionism” refers not to genres or movements such as Fauvism, Cubism, Whirlpool, but also to the meaning given to it in the artistic literature of the twentieth century. “Expressionism” was first used to depict the art of expressing feelings as its salient features. In John Willet’s Expressionism (1970), he traces this usage back to an article in The Tate Edinburgh Journal in June 1850, which addresses “Expressionist genres in modern painters”; the book also mentions