Unsteady but vibrant. Incomplete but fulfilling. A new retrospective at the Pushkin Museum of Die Brßcke, or The Bridge, the Dresden-based group of radical painters who founded the Expressionist movement, lend a fascinating insight into Germany's early 20th-century Zeitgeist.

The neoclassical surroundings of the Pushkin Museum's main building starkly contrast with the paintings' vivid colors and harsh brushstrokes. Each artist from the group is given his own section, with pieces displayed out of chronological order.

This produces a simultaneous discord and harmony that neatly mirrors the group's ethos. "[The name] 'Die Brßcke' comes from Nietzsche," explained Yelena Rymshina, the exhibition's curator. "It represents our transitory state, [moving] from past to present, country to city, creating a new man."

The Brßcke artists were impressed by "all the isms" of the time, Rymshina said. "They kept inviting Matisse to Dresden, but he always refused, because they only offered him one-way tickets."

But they set out to create a distinctly new kind of art: "Freedom in our work and in our lives, independence from older, established forces," they wrote in their manifesto. The artists shunned the detached approach of the Impressionists and Fauvists. "They brought their life and work together and moved into an abandoned butchery," said Annette Blattmacher, assistant director of Berlin's Brßcke Museum, which has loaned most of the 134 works to the Pushkin. "So they lived in a commune, just like hippies."

Where Impressionism was painstakingly composed and detailed, the early Expressionism displayed here is intensely spiritual, even violent. Emil Nolde's depiction of Christ's crucifixion, for example, depicts grotesque centurions laughing at a glassy-eyed, bright green Jesus.

Purely decorative painting styles were made vibrant and disfigured. This radical method is even evident in Brßcke portraits, in which they used child models and limited portrait sittings to 15 minutes. This, Blattmacher said, was to emphasize the force of nature. Encouraging artistic spontaneity and focusing on the androgynous child body brought them seemingly closer to a universal idyll.

Their approach was often primitivist: They enthusiastically revived the medieval German tradition of woodcuts, dozens of which are on display. But none of the Brßcke artists managed to reconcile their affinity for nature with the rise of the modern city.

"For [Erich] Heckel, the parks in Hamburg were unnatural, unreal places," Blattmacher said. His trees and lawns have the sensual qualities of Brßcke landscapes, but are framed in an uneasily still atmosphere, overshadowed by gathering darkness. And, while Karl Schmidt-Rottluff only painted countrysides and nudes, his work after the group's move to Berlin is characterized by rough strokes and stormy weather suggesting the same increasing unease.

Still, the group shared a faith in the transcendental power of art. "Kirschner said, 'Painting is my belief'; that art can pull man out of the worst, the most hopeless situations," Rymshina said.

But World War I proved a crushing rebuttal, Blattmacher said. "All the Brßcke artists were involved in the army in some way or other. And they didn't get to know any ideals, but bloody reality."

That new reality saw the group first made redundant, as Expressionism moved beyond them, and was then outlawed. "All the Brßcke artists were displayed in Hitler's 'degenerate art' expo in 1937. And then nearly everything was lost in World War II," Rymshina said. This is, in fact, the first time an exhibition like this has traveled outside of Germany. "It's a miracle it can happen at all."

"German Expressionism — Die Brßcke Artists" (Nemetsky Ekspressionizm — Khudozhniki Gruppy Most) runs from Sat. to Nov. 2 at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, located at 12 Volkhonka. Metro Kropotkinskaya. Tel. 203-7998/9578.