"We call together all young people and -- as young people who bear the future -- we want to acquire freedom for our hands and lives, against the well-established older forces. Everyone belongs to us who renders in an unfalsified way everything that compels him to be creative."
-- Die Brücke manifesto, 1906
The German Expressionists sought paradise -- but found only hell. At the dawn of the 20th century, a generation of idealistic young artists, united by a passionate belief in freedom of expression, strove to capture in their works an arcadian harmony between man and his environment.