
Foxes
(oil on canvas, 1913)
Museum
Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf
Franz
Marc was an Expressionist
painter who formed Der
Blaue Reiter group with Wassily
Kandinsky. They were part of an artistic movement who were
searching for spiritual truth through their art. Marc believed
that colour had a vocabulary of emotional keys that we instinctively
understand, much in the same way that we understand music. This
language of colour was one tool that Marc used to raise his
art to a higher 'spiritual' plane, another was his choice of
subject.

Tiger
(oil on canvas, 1912))
Stadtische
Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
'Tiger'
is a typical example of Franz Marc's painting style. It is a
fusion of several influences: the expressive
and symbolic
use of colour that he discovered in the paintings of Van
Gogh and Gauguin combined with the fragmented and prismatic
compositions of various Cubist
styles.
The
Tiger and its surroundings are composed of geometric shapes
whose similarity suggests both the camouflage of the tiger in
its natural habitat and the harmony between the creature and
its environment. Colour is the main element used to separate
the tiger from its background. Strong yellow and black shapes
outline its form to convey the markings of the beast. The geometric
shapes that make up its form are carefully proportioned and
simplified to represent the tiger's features and its muscular
body, while their rhythmic movement is echoed in the stylised
shapes of the rocks and foliage of the background. This is indeed
an idealistic view of nature - an image designed to lift its
subject above the brutality of nature in the raw.

Blue
Horse
(oil on canvas, 1911))
Stadtische
Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
Franz
Marc painted animals as they symbolised an age of innocence,
like Eden before the Fall, free from the materialism and corruption
of his own time. Animals in Marc's art are seldom painted in
isolation. They are viewed as idealised creatures in perfect
harmony with the natural world they inhabit.
Franz
Marc yearned for a life on a higher spiritual plane. In fact,
before he took up art, he studied Theology with a view to entering
the priesthood. Ironically, his death was a sad contradiction
of his hopes and dreams. He volunteered for service in the army
at the start of World War 1 and never painted again. He was
killed by a piece of shrapnel in 1916, during the assault on
Verdun, the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.
Franz
Marc Notes
