The Mill (at Goppeln)

Erich Heckel (1883-1970) was a German painter known as a founding member of Die Brucke (The Bridge), the pioneering Expressionist group founded in Dresden in 1905. The Mill (at Goppeln) from 1907 depicts a mill in the village of Goppeln near Dresden in the bold, angular manner that distinguishes Heckel's early Die Brucke work. The 1907 date places this in the earliest and most productive period of Die Brucke, when the group was developing the bold, angular Expressionist style that would revolutionize German art, and the Goppeln subject shows the group's practice of painting in the countryside near Dresden.

The Mill (at Goppeln) is important in the history of German Expressionism because it demonstrates the bold, angular manner that Heckel developed as a founding member of Die Brucke. Die Brucke's practice of painting in the countryside near Dresden—using bold, angular forms and vivid colors to transform the landscape into an expression of inner feeling—revolutionized German art, and the 1907 painting shows this revolution in its earliest, most energetic phase.

The Mill (at Goppeln) is Heckel's early Die Brucke Expressionism: a mill near Dresden rendered in the bold, angular manner of one of the founding members of the pioneering Expressionist group. The 1907 painting shows the revolution in its earliest phase—bold forms and vivid colors transforming the landscape into Expressionist feeling.