INTRODUCTION

 The Expressionist and Primitivist movements stand at the center of a maelstrom.

The argument between those who favor "realist," "useful" art and those who value

modernist art swirls around the movements. Some would dub the Expressionists fools,

berating them for their inability (or unwillingness) to take a political stand when one was

necessary. Others argue that their art, along with the Primitivist art, finds a deeper truth

than "realist" works ever could. In the midst of this thunderstorm, it would seem that

there are no new arguments to be made.

 A more recent addition to the debate, however, does allow for a new way to

 approach the realist/modernist argument. Deleuze and Guattari, in their work on Kafka,

 have created a rhetorical escape from the enclosed system and have, in doing so, given us

 a new way to perceive Expressionism and Primitivism as art movements. Rather than

 viewing the movements from a position on the axis between realism and modernism,

 Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature shows us how we can view them as attempts to escape

 the machinations of society. In this new light, Deleuze and Guattari show us how

 Expressionism and Primitivism were attempts at "becoming-animal," attempts whose

 failure further illustrates the machinations of society and the re-territorializing engine that

 the artists were working to elude.