On the Origin of the Word 'Expressionism'

~the German expressionist movement, it is surprising to learn that neither the group nor any of the individual Briicke artists were ever specifically called 'expressionist' during the 1905-13 period of the Bruicke's existence. Even up to that moment in 1917 when Ernst Ludwig Kirchner1 (the former group's leader) permanently left Germany to reside in Switzerland, he had only once been called an expressionist in his native land. These facts raise several questions: Who were the expressionist artists before World War I, if not Kirchner and the Briicke? And what did the word 'expressionism' mean before, and after, its retroactive application to the Dresden pioneers of modern art?