The Sick Child by Edvard Munch

Throughout most of art history, artists aimed to represent their subjects realistically, depicting physical objects as they appear to the eye or as imagined in the mind. Inspired by Post-Impressionists such as van Gogh and Cézanne, artists began deliberately distorting their subjects on the canvas to emphasize emotion. One of these movements was Expressionism, named to contrast with Impressionism's goal of capturing fleeting impressions of the external world.