Franz Marc: 8 works

'In meadows in the Upper Bavarian foothills near Kochel, Lenggries and Sindelsdorf, in direct contact with animals, he made numerous paintings, studies and drawings of them. He certainly did not see himself as a painter of animals in the academic tradition.'

'At the end of 1911, the Blaue Reiter was established along with the eponymous almanac edited by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc.'

'Coedited by Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky, The Blaue Reiter Almanac ranks among the most important documents in the history of twentieth-century art.'

'No longer bound by the truthful representation of nature, yet without wholly relinquishing links to the real world, Franz Marc provides in The Dream a masterly reflection of 'the organic rhythm... of all things,' highlighting his awareness of Italian Futurist and French Cubist theories.'

'Marc painted "The Bewitched Mill" following a sojourn to the Italian town of Merano in the southern Tirol. The work's title refers to the "magical" harmony he sensed there between human life, represented by the houses and mill on the left, and nature, embodied by the lyrical region of trees and animals on the right.'

'These unified compositions gave Marc's paintings added expressive power and also offered a concrete equivalent in his pantheistic belief in the unity of all creation. Both in color and in form he endeavored to express his conviction that a spiritual reality lies beyond the visible world.'

'Unlike Delaunay's open structures in Les Fenêtres sur la Ville, Marc's image has a center defined by strong red tones. His abstraction suggests natural processes, the growth of crystals and plants, unlike Delaunay's references to a modern metropolis.'

'Believing that the First World War would have a cathartic effect on Europe and pave the way to a better society, Marc, like many of his contemporaries, joined the army when war broke out. He was killed in action in France in 1916.'