Franz brand bird description of the picture. Franz Marc - The Short Life of a German Expressionist and His Colored Animals

Franz Mark (02/08/1880 - 03/04/1916) - German artist and graphic artist, one of the founders of the Blue Rider art group. Mark is world famous for his colorful, expressionistic animal paintings.

Mark was born in Munich in the family of a landscape painter. He grew up in an atmosphere of strict piety and dreamed of becoming a priest.

1900: In search of style. In 1900, Mark began to study at the Munich Art Academy. His early works are marked by the influence of the Munich school: landscape paintings made in joyful colors, fine details of which are carefully drawn with a thin brush.

In Paris, Franz Marc got acquainted with the work of the Impressionists, which led (1903) to a change in Marc's artistic views. He left the academy and approached the Impressionist style of painting, working with light, radiant colors, which he applied in broad, careless strokes.

In 1905, melancholy and often under the influence of another spiritual crisis, Mark met the artists Marie Schnuer and Maria Frank. Although he loved Maria Frank, he nevertheless married (1907) Marie Schnuer. A year later, their union broke up, while Shnyur, despite the initial agreement, filed a lawsuit for Mark's damages from the divorce, thereby preventing her ex-husband from marrying Frank. During a summer stay in Lenggriese in 1908, Mark painted his first painting of a horse. He was still in search of his own form language. The image was reduced to isolating the main thing and was characterized by a rhythmic direction of strokes, although the color palette remained naturalistically complete.

1910: Color theory. In correspondence with his friend August Macke, Mark developed his own color theory, according to which each of the three primary colors was characterized by individual properties: blue represented "masculine, spiritual and ascetic essence", yellow - "feminine, tenderness and joys of life"; red personified matter as such and therefore was "rough and heavy", being in opposition to the previous two. One of the first paintings in which he embodied his theory of color correlation was Horse in a Landscape (1910).

1911-1913: Famous animal painter. Animals in Mark's eyes were the bearers of such qualities as beauty, purity and fidelity, which he no longer looked forward to finding in the human environment. Drawing animals, Mark did not strive to capture them through the eyes of a person, but rather imagined himself in their place. Thus, in the painting "Roe deer in the forest II" (1912), the viewer sees a roe deer curled up in a ball in the foreground, which feels safe, while the figures in the background are preparing to attack. Other notable works from this period include Blue Horse I, Yellow Cow, Little Blue Horses (all 1911), and Tiger (1912).

1911: "The Blue Rider". In 1911, Mark joined the "New Association of Artists of Munich", which also belonged to Wassily Kandinsky. In the same year, Kandinsky and Mark began work on an almanac, which, according to their plan, was to collect paintings of various cultures and articles about artists. Tensions within the Association forced Mark and Kandinsky to leave the group and create their own, which they called the Blue Rider. They defined their artistic goal as "combining pure color with pure form."

1912: The path to abstraction. After the publication of the almanac "The Blue Rider" (1912), Mark became interested in abstract painting: animals are often presented in the form of formulas that need to be deciphered. Impressed by the exhibition of works by Italian futurists, Mark began to subordinate color to an intricate heap of planes.

The motif of the painting was subjected to a quasi-prismatic decomposition into geometric forms ("Roe deer in the monastery garden", 1912; "The Fate of the Beast", 1913; "Stables", 1913/14). At the same time, he worked on the "Blue Horse Tower" (finished in 1913), which was his last creation for the glory of the animal world. In the future, Mark turned exclusively to abstract painting. In the four so-called "pictures-forms" (1914), due to the appropriate mutual arrangement of form and color, he doubles the feeling of either idyll and harmony, or struggle and decline. Immediately after the outbreak of the First World War, Mark went to the front as a volunteer, expecting that the war would bring purification and renewal to society. In 1916 he died near Verdun (France) at the age of 36.

Franz Moritz Wilhelm Mark(Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc) was born February 8, 1880 in Munich in the family of Wilhelm Marc, a lawyer and amateur artist.

His father Wilhelm Mark, apparently fulfilling the desire of his parents, successfully graduated from the Faculty of Law, and then devoted himself to landscape painting. According to Franz, his father was a landscape painter "of an unusually philosophical disposition."

Wilhelm Marc owns a painting depicting 15-year-old Franz carving wood (above; c. 1895, now in the Franz Marc Museum).
Mother of the future artist Sofia, was from an Alsatian family with harsh Calvinist traditions; worked as a home teacher.
Franz's grandparents were amateur artists, copying paintings by famous masters. Their ancestors came from aristocratic families; had friends among artists and writers.

In general, the year 1880 can be called the year of painters, because then Andre Derain (André Derain; 1880-1954) was born - a French painter, graphic artist, theater decorator;
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) German expressionist painter, graphic artist and sculptor;
Fritz Bleyl (1880-1966) German expressionist painter and architect;
American artist of German origin Hans Hoffmann (1880-1966), a representative of abstract expressionism,
as well as Max Clarenbach (Max Clarenbach; 1880-1952), a German artist, one of the organizers of the Düsseldorf association Sonderbund.

As a child, the future painter was distinguished by shyness and a penchant for dreams and reflections. In the family, Franz was called " little philosopher". These character traits were encouraged in him by his older brother. Paul(Paul Marc, 1877-1949), later a famous Byzantine scholar.

Both of them studied at the Munich Luitpold Gymnasium (Luitpold Gymnasium), which Franz, having passed the final exams, graduated in 1899 (his years of study there 1895-1899).
1899– Franz Marc serves in the army, in the cavalry.

In the last years of his stay at the gymnasium, Franz was especially fond of the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and the music of Richard Wagner.
Initially, he intended to devote himself to the study of theology and dreamed of the path of a rural priest (the mother of the future artist was a strict Calvinist).

F. Mark. Mother Portrait (1902)

A little later, he thought about studying philosophy and even entered in 1899 at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Munich.
And only during the passage of compulsory military service, Franz Marc decided to become an artist.

In 1900 Mark was admitted to the Bavarian Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied for several years under the guidance of academic painters Gabriel Hackl (Gabriel von Hackl, 1843-1926) and Wilhelm von Dietz (Albrecht Christoph Wilhelm von Diez; 1839-1907; German colorist , a prominent figure in the Academy of Fine Arts).

At the beginning of the century, Munich was the recognized artistic center of Germany. The tastes of the Munich public were determined by the dominant style of the fashionable secular portrait painter Franz von Lenbach - artistically careless, in dark colors painting. The direction of symbolism was represented by the work of Franz von Stuck, a follower of the popular Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin. Stuck also taught at the Academy during Mark's years there; among his pupils were Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, who were later to become close friends of Franz Marc.

In 1901 Together with his older brother Paul Franz traveled to Venice, Padua and Verona.

1902- near the Bavarian town of Kochel (Kochel) writes in the open air ("Peat mossy huts in Dachau", above).

At the Academy, Mark acquired professional skills, but the system of teaching historical painting in the traditions of the 19th century was deeply alien to him.

In 1903 at the invitation of a classmate, Franz Marc visited Paris as well as Brittany and Normandy. At exhibitions and museums in Paris, he discovered the Impressionists, the ascetic forms of ancient art from the Louvre collections, and the linear decorativeness of Japanese prints.

Studying at the Academy has not brought satisfaction for a long time. And after Mark first saw the works of Van Gogh, Gauguin, Manet in Paris, he decided to leave the academy and continue his studies on his own. From the trip, Franz also brought Japanese woodcuts (woodcuts) that impressed him.

In 1904 Franz Marc, having left the walls of the academy, moved to his first independent studio in Munich (Kaulbachstrasse, 68). At the end of the same year, he moved again (Schellinger St., 33). Writes "Indersdorf" (Indersdorf).

F. Mark. Indersdorf (1904)

Brief episodes of his biography - a fascination with the Art Nouveau style and sentimental lyricism of German soil - only contributed to the realization of his own aesthetic views.

F. Mark - Study with a horse (1905)

In 1906 Franz travels with his older brother Paul, a specialist in Byzantium for Greece visiting Mount Athos, Thessaloniki and other places.

F. Mark. Fresco (1904-1908)

In 1907 second trip to France. Living in Paris for almost half a year, Franz Marc visits city museums, copies famous canvases - a traditional form for artists to study and develop technology.

Works had a huge impact on the young painter van gogh.
Mark noted: “- the most sincere, greatest, soulful painter of all known to me. To write in the simplest manner, putting all the faith and aspirations into the canvas is the highest achievement ... Now I draw only the simplest ... Only in it can one find symbolism, pathos and the mystery of nature.

In Paris, Franz entered the artistic circle, met the famous Sarah Bernhardt.

Schwabing was the center of bohemian life, acquaintances were quickly made here...

It so happened that the development of Mark the painter was accompanied by melancholy and emotional outbursts. He travels extensively during the summer, seeking to recover from failed love affairs.
Ardent Franz found himself inside a love triangle, being in connection with two Marias: Marie Shnyur(illustrator, Marie Schnür, 1869 - 1955) and Maria Frank(Maria Franck, 1876-1955).

Both Marys are depicted in the small study "Two Women on the Hill" (1906), above.
For many years lasted his painful affair with a married artist Annette von Eckardt (Annette Von Eckardt; 9 years older than Mark).

Marie Schnuer was 11 years older than Franz. She already had an illegitimate son when she met and married Franz in March 1907. On Mark’s part, it was a “compassionate marriage”: thanks to the marriage, Marie Schnyur could take her son (who had previously lived with her parents) to her.

A photograph of happy days together (1906) has been preserved - both Mary and Mark enjoy freedom and nakedness in the bosom of nature.

The first marriage, which soon became a formality, did not give the artist the opportunity to legitimize his relationship with Maria Frank before 1911. They also met in 1905 at a costume party (photo below).

The lovers needed the permission of the church to marry. Having received a refusal twice, they went to England, hoping to register the relationship according to the local laws, but again they refused. Then Franz and Maria simply lived together - an unheard-of courage in those days.

F. Mark. Head of a Girl (with Marie Frank, 1906)

Outwardly, they did not seem like a suitable couple - Franz, a refined intellectual with noble features, and Maria with a rough peasant face.

(Maria and Franz Marc with the dog Russi, 1911)

But it was she, cordial and open, who became his faithful companion for life.

In 1907 Franz Marc for the first time showed at the exhibition a large pictorial sketch for the tapestry "Orpheus and the Beasts" (Munich, Lenbachhaus). The frieze-like composition of the sketch, as it were, resurrects a forgotten vision of an earthly paradise - a singer walking through a flowering meadow surrounded by animals and birds obedient to divine sounds.
It is known that its interest in animals the artist backed it up with a comprehensive study of the subject.

F. Mark. Elephant (1907)

He read about the treatment of animals in the monasteries of the Franciscan order; his reference book was Animal Life by Alfred Brehm; in the famous Berlin zoo he made sketches from nature, and in the zoological museum he studied animal skeletons; studied the relationship between external form and internal structure.

F. Mark. Dead Sparrow (1905)

Around 1908 Mark begins to study especially actively behavior, movements and nature of animals. He spends hours watching and writing cows and horses in the Bavarian pastures; deer in the forest. A series of photographs survive, possibly taken by Mark himself, which show that the artist sometimes had to hide in dense reed beds for his observations.

In 1908 - 1909, Franz Marc spent time in the city of Tölz, Upper Bavaria.
Paintings "Larch" and "Deer at dusk" (1909, top).

“From an early age, I perceived people as ugly. Animals seemed to me more beautiful and cleaner' Mark wrote.
The image of the animal has become a pictorial metaphor for a pure, natural human spirit that has not been mutilated by civilization - the way it should be according to the artist.

He writes "Nude with a cat", "Grazing horses", begins work on the painting "Dog lying in the snow."

In 1910 meets art dealers Brakl and Thannhauser.

In the same year, an important event took place in the life of Franz Marc: he met a young German expressionist August Macke (August Macke, 1887 - 1914). A strong friendship developed. Macke became Franz's associate for the short remaining years of their lives.

From a studio in Munich, Franz moved to the village of Sindelsdorf (Sindelsdorf) - together with Maria Frank.

Autumn 1910 F. Mark participates in the second exhibition of the Association of New Artists (New Artists "Association) in the Munich Tannhauser Gallery.
In the same 1910 the first independent (solo) exhibition of F. Mark's works was held at the Brakl Gallery in Munich. Moreover, Mark secured the financial support of the industrialist and philanthropist Bernhard Koehler (Bernhard Koehler, 1849 - 1927), who was the uncle of August Macke's wife.

The proximity of Munich helps the gregarious Macke to connect with the artists who later united in The Blue Rider, especially Franz Marc and Paul Klee. Makke followed their creative searches with interest, participated in their projects (for example, in the almanac), helped them whenever possible, negotiating with gallery owners, patrons, and exhibition organizers.
However, he does not share the aesthetic views of the Blue Rider in everything, which sometimes seem to him too pretentious or, in his words, going "too off the top".

Macke developed the most cordial friendships with Franz Marc.
June to November 1910 they worked together near Munich in the village of Sindelsdorf, where Mark now lived.
This period of active mutual influence turned out to be extremely important and fruitful for both artists.
Mark and Macke travel together to Paris, where they get acquainted with the color-light experiments of Robert Delaunay, for which Guillaume Apollinaire coined the name "Orphism". (from article)

In 1910 in response to a request from Munich publisher Reinhard Pieper to comment on the topic of "animals in art", Franz Marc wrote:

"I don't aim image only animals... I want to sharpen my perception of the organic rhythm of all things, to expand the pantheistic sense of the world, the living pulsating flow of blood in nature, trees, animals and air ... I do not know a better way to do this "revival" art than depicting animals."

It was then, in 1910, that Mark formulated his aesthetic credo, which he himself described in terms of "animation", "pantheism", "purity", "rhythm".

"Three Red Horses" (1911, Rome, collection of P. Geyer) - the first completed example of a unique bestial Franz Marc style.
The horse was the artist's favorite "hero", the embodiment of the beauty and perfection of natural forces. All summer 1910, a turning point in the work of Mark, the artist spent in the village of Sindelsdorf, watching horses grazing in the meadows. He made cursory sketches, which resulted in three versions of the painting "Horses in the pasture."

(Horses in the pasture, 1910)

But only the fourth variant, "Three Red Horses", summed up natural observations in a refined symbolic image. The grace of noble animals, depicted in different turns and merged into a triune whole, resembles the swirling rhythm of a dance.

Franz Marc- Grazing Horses IV (The Red Horses), 1911

Deep shimmering colors - red bodies against the background of a yellow-green meadow, blue stones and purple-lilac reflections of the setting sun - reveal new emotional possibilities of color in painting.

In 1911 Franz Marc met a Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky(1866-1944), who lived in Munich for the fifteenth year. Franz Marc and August Macke warmly supported Kandinsky's idea of ​​publishing a special almanac, on the pages of which avant-garde artists could express their views on art. So arose "Blue Rider"(Der Blaue Reiter). The soul of the publication and the artistic circle that rallied around it were Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc himself.

("The Blue Rider": on the left, Maria Frank and Franz Marc, 1911)

The artists of this association, among whom were also Heinrich Campendonk (Heinrich Campendonk, 1889 - 1957), Lyonel Feininger (Lyonel Feininger, 1871-1956), Paul Klee (Paul Klee, 1879-1940), Alfred Kubin (Alfred Kubin, 1877-1959 ), continued to develop the principles of German expressionism, proclaimed in 1905 by the painters of the Bridge group in Dresden.

“The blue rider is the two of us,” Kandinsky later said.
Together, having appropriated, according to Kandinsky, "dictatorial powers", they prepared the exhibitions of The Blue Rider, edited together the almanac of the same name.
Even the appearance of the name "The Blue Rider", which, as Kandinsky recalled, was born at a coffee table in the garden of Sindeldorf, testifies to the mutual understanding of the two artists: "We both loved the color blue, Mark - horses, I - riders. And the name came by itself.

(F. Mark and V. Kandinsky, 1911)

December 1911 - January 1912: Franz Marc showed his first works at the Blue Rider exhibition organized in the Munich gallery Thannhauser Galleries.
The Munich exhibition of the group and the almanac published later brought the artists "tribute of glory: crooked talk, noise and abuse." Both the public and the press were outraged by this revolutionary painting, with the imprint of a radical freedom of colors and colors. e that. Everywhere one could hear: "Scribble, colored smear."
This was the apogee of the German Expressionist movement. The exhibition was also shown in Berlin, Cologne, Hagen and Frankfurt.

In the essay "Spiritual Treasures" written for the almanac "The Blue Rider" in 1912, Franz Marc analyzes the concept of " mystical inner workings”, speaking of the perception of the spiritual principle, which gives the being or place a special, unique character. Mark explores this theme through El Greco's figures and landscapes. The use of the word "mystical" evokes the thought of something intangible or not obvious at first glance, as well as a feeling of intrigue. Franz Marc strives to capture this "mystical inner workings" in his depictions of animals.

The painting “Two Women on a Hill” (1906) mentioned above is one of the artist’s few works depicting people.

F. Mark. Blue Fox (1911)

In almost all of his paintings, watercolors and engravings, we see animals: deer, bulls, cows, cats, dogs, tigers, monkeys, foxes, wild boars.

F. Mark. Bull (1911)

But most often - horses. He fell in love with them forever during the years of compulsory military service.
But Franz Marc was not an animal painter: for him, the animal is not a realistic “nature”, but a higher being, a symbol of natural, pure, perfect and harmonious being. The “animal” vision of the world seemed to him like a window into the realm of nature inaccessible to man:

“Is there anything more mysterious for an artist than reflection of nature in the eyes of an animal? How does a horse or an eagle, a roe deer or a dog see the world? How pathetic and dead is our desire to put animals in the landscape that they see our eyes instead of penetrating into their souls».

Franz Marc stands apart in the Expressionist movement. The romantic striving for the ideal, the search for inner harmony are especially noticeable in such of his works as The Blue Horse (1911, Munich, Lenbachhaus), Bull (1911, New York, Guggenheim Museum, above), White Cat (1912 , Halle, Moritzburg Gallery, below), “A Dog Looking at the World” (1912, Zurich, private collection, top right).

These properties distinguish Mark's art from the work of other expressionists with their intense exaltation of color and form. However, on the eve of the First World War, a disturbing mood appeared in Mark's work. It was rather intuitive premonition of impending disaster than a rational understanding of the historical situation.

In 1913 Mark paints the picture "Wolves" (Munich, Lenbachhaus, above) - a pack of predators, bringing the fire of war and destruction into the peaceful idyll of nature.

In the same year, he creates his famous Tower of Blue Horses (above; location unknown), where the once harmonic image of a horse becomes a link in a frighteningly unstable construction of heaping and collapsing forms.

The culmination of disturbing forebodings was the picture " The fate of animals"(1913, Basel, Art Museum). According to the artist himself, he only later fully felt the prophetic nature of these paintings: in the faults and shifts of forms, he clearly heard “the rumble of the hoofs of the apocalyptic horsemen”.

This is the most famous painting by Franz Marc. He finished it in 1913 when "the whole society was seized with a sense of impending catastrophe."
Franz Marc wrote on the back of the painting: And all living things burn in agony » ("Und Alles Sein ist flammend Leid").
Already at the front, about this picture of his: “... it is akin to a premonition of the coming war - crushing and terrible. It's even hard for me to believe that this is me created such a painting.

The subtitle of the picture is " Trees expose their coils, animals their veins ” emphasizes the tragic idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe canvas: only cut down trees show rings, only dead animals show their insides. The forest thicket appears in the picture as a symbol of the hidden world of nature, which is destroyed and perishes under the pressure of an unknown formidable force. In the apocalyptic chaos we distinguish predatory red flashes and rays, falling trunks, restless horses, frightened huddled deer, wild boars seeking shelter, and in the center of the canvas - as the personification of an innocent victim - a blue doe, throwing its head back to the sky.
This requiem painting, which became a prophecy of the coming war, is one of the last major works of Mark, in which he retained a connection with figurative painting.

In the last year of creativity ( 1914 ) Mark discovered the possibilities of painting outside of real object forms. Cow Painting, Struggling Forms, Tyrol [below] (all three - Munich, the Bavarian State Assemblies) consistently demonstrate the path along which the artist moved when he crossed the threshold of realism.

The explosive dynamic structure of these canvases, the powerful rhythm of color combinations, made it possible to expect the development of the principles of abstract art. True, in the front-line notebook, Mark, next to abstractions, still drew deer and his favorite horses.

"I am leaving on Thursday... now we need to shut up and give the floor to world history».

F. Mark. Sleeping dog. 1909

In April 1914 Franz and Maria Mark bought a small country house in Ried (Ried, municipal district in Bavaria). According to the memoirs of Kandinsky, this purchase was "the fulfillment of one of Franz's greatest desires." He was able to keep a dog and even a tame deer.
The days before leaving for the front, Mark spent at home in Ried (Ried) near Benediktbeyren: in his studio in the garden, where roe deer grazed, and where Russi (a white shepherd dog) had his own little paradise.

But already in August of the same 1914, with the beginning of the First World War, Mark volunteered for the front (in the cavalry) - sharing a common part of the German intelligentsia illusion of spiritual renewal, which the heroic victorious war was supposed to bring with it ... Kandinsky came to tell his friend and ally "Goodbye", but Franz answered: "Farewell."

After a few weeks spent in the field artillery barracks, Mark is sent to the border battles for Lorraine. From the "Blue Rider" the artist turned into an equestrian front-line signalman. He sends by field mail to Reed: "I feel so calm, there is no fear of future difficulties."

(right: Franz Marc and Russi the dog, drawing by August Macke)

But after a few days, the war shows its true face: "The putrid smell is unbearable for many kilometers around."
Soon, Mark, who fell ill, lies in the infirmary in the Ruhr.

In October 1914 F. Mark was overtaken by the deeply shocking news of the death of 27-year-old August Macke (in September 1914) ...

In an obituary dedicated to a friend, F. Mark wrote:
“In war, we are all equal, but out of a thousand worthy people, a bullet struck one irreplaceable ...
With his death, the most beautiful and bold turn of German artistic development suddenly broke; no one is able to continue it.
Everyone goes his own way; and wherever we meet, we will always miss him. We artists are well aware that with his departure, the harmony of colors in German art in many of his melodies must fade, the sound has become muffled and dry.
Of all of us, it was he who gave the color the brightest and purest sound, as bright and pure as his whole being was.
(from article)

By February 1916 as seen "he gravitates towards military camouflage". He developed a technique for painting canvas awnings and covers to shelter artillery from aerial reconnaissance, in a bold pointillism style. Franz Marc created a series of nine such "canvas paintings", in styles that ranged "from Manet to Kandinsky"; moreover, according to the artist, it is Kandinsky who is most effective against enemy aircraft flying at an altitude of two or more thousand meters.

From the front, Mark sent many letters, outlining his philosophical aesthetics.
He always had a notebook with sketches of paintings, which he hoped to paint as soon as he got the chance.

Disaster and destruction are all around him, but Mark nonetheless theorizes about the supposed benefits of war, mentioning spiritual breakthrough and redemption through suffering among other things. He became so convinced of the ultimate usefulness of war that he even forgot that his patriotic devotion, in fact, fueled the war effort and determined his presence in the war.
Soon the artist began to interpret what was happening in an even more fatalistic way; considering himself akin to images of animals that have become for him simply the motive for something larger.
At the front, Mark is forced to rationalize his own goal - but in doing so, he is deeply tormented by contradictions. Paul Klee "feared that Franz would become a completely different person," that his subtle spiritual organization would not bear the burden of reality. Mark was traumatized by the war; he wrote that only death would bring him consolation and peace. One of the letters (to the artist's mother) contains the following lines:

“... there is nothing frightening in death, it is a universal fate that comprehends everyone and returns us back to normal “being”. The space between birth and death is an exception that holds so much fear and suffering. The only true, unchanging, philosophical rest and consolation is the realization that the mentioned exceptional state will pass, and that the "I-consciousness", eternally restless, incomprehensible, unattainable, will again sink into the wondrous peace of pre-birth ... For the one who thirsts for purity and knowledge, death is salvation. (cm. )

After the mobilization into the German army, the government compiled a list of prominent artists who, for security reasons, should have been spared from being at the front. Franz Marc was one of that list. But even before the release order reached the front-line units, the artist died.
During one of the reconnaissance trips, the cavalry came under fire, Franz Mark was killed by a shell fragment that hit him in the head. This happened March 4, 1916 at the Battle of Verdun. In a senseless battle that lasted almost half a year and claimed 335,000 lives on the German side and 360,000 on the French side.

After the death of the artist in Munich and Berlin, his memorial exhibitions were organized.

In 1936-37. the Nazis branded the work of the late F. Mark as "degenerate art"; about 130 of his works were withdrawn from exhibitions in museums in Germany. This caused noisy discussions in society: the artist Franz Mark was loved by the public, he died in battle as an officer in the German army.

History reference:
For the first time in history, a blue horse was depicted on the fresco "Athletes and Rider" in the "Tomb of the Chariots" in 490 BC.

After getting acquainted with the biography of the German artist Franz Marc, you will understand why the horses in his paintings are multi-colored, where the name of the art group he organized came from, and how the color theory invented by him is built.

Franz Mark
Franz Marc

August Macke Portrait of Franz Marc 1910
Franz Marc Self-portrait with a Breton hat 1905

A German artist who combined the features of symbolism and expressionism in his work, one of the founders of the Blue Rider group.
The main theme of Mark, to which he attached a mystical and symbolic meaning, is the depiction of animals in the nature around them. In his ecstatic images, marked by the dynamics of forms, a sharp contour drawing, intense coloring (several primary colors), a spontaneous rejection of modern reality and a premonition of future social upheavals were reflected.

Born in the family of an artist - a professional landscape painter Wilhelm Mark. Dreamed of becoming a priest.
In 1899, Mark entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Munich, but did not return there after serving in the army.
In 1900 he turned to art and from 1900 to 1903 studied at the Munich Academy of Arts with G. Hakl and V. Dietz. However, historical painting, which was emphasized at the academy, as well as the naturalism it propagated, were not of interest to the artist.

Photos by F. Mark

Having visited Paris (for the first time in 1903, then in 1907 and 1912), he was influenced by French impressionism and post-impressionism. Here he discovered the great artists - Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Their work made a deep impression on the young painter. Van Gogh was especially close to him in spirit. After a second trip to Paris, the artist begins to seriously study the anatomy of animals in order to most fully embody his vision of nature in painting.

Horses in the pasture 1910

In his early pieces he retained a traditional, more naturalistic palette, although he strove for rhythmic generalizations of forms in the spirit of symbolism; Since 1908, the image of a horse against the background of a conditional landscape has become the leitmotif of his painting.

Blue horses 1911

Blue horse 1911

Blue horse 1911

To make the animals in his paintings as harmonious as possible, Franz tried to look at the world through their eyes. He even wrote a text once, titled "How does the horse see the world?". The rejection of natural color increased the effect of the paintings on the audience. French Fauvist artists also resorted to this technique, but they did it for the sake of decorativeness, and Mark, as he himself claimed, in order to enhance the significance of the animal.

His personal life does not add up. He is going through a painful affair with the artist Anette von Eckardt. His compassionate marriage to Maria Shnyur ends in failure. All this makes him look for an outlet in the "primitive" animal world.

Two horses 1911-12

Shepherds 1911-12

Dreams 1912

Then, by the end of the 1910s, in correspondence with his friend, the artist A. Macke, he developed his own color theory, where he gave each of the primary colors a special spiritual meaning (blue embodied for him the “masculine” and “ascetic” beginning, yellow - "femininity" and "joy of life", red - the oppression of "rough and heavy" matter).

Yellow horses 1912

Red and blue horses 1912

Long Yellow Horse 1913

In 1911 he joined the New Munich Art Association, where Wassily Kandinsky played a leading role. In the same year, Mark and Kandinsky left the association, founding the Blue Rider group and releasing (in 1912) an almanac of the same name, decorated with their engravings and drawings. In an interview in 1930, Kandinsky explained why this name arose: both founders loved the color blue, in addition, Mark loved horses, and Kandinsky loved running.
From December 1911 to January 1912, the editors of the almanac opened an exhibition of paintings by V. Kandinsky, F. Mark, A. Macke and others in the Tanhauser Gallery in Munich, which became the front of German expressionism, which laid the foundation for the Blue Rider association.

Two horses. Red and blue. 1912

Blue horse 1912

In 1912, he met Robert Delaunay, whose style, along with Italian Futurism and Cubism, became the next source of inspiration for the artist. The mature paintings of the master are dedicated to animals, presented as higher, purer creatures in relation to man, who seemed too ugly to Mark. Among the characteristic paintings of this kind, with their smooth rhythms and bright and at the same time dramatic color contrasts, are Red Horses (1910–1912, Folkwang Museum, Essen). Under the influence of Italian Futurism, the artist began to decompose forms into component planes, making his images more dynamic (The Fate of Animals, 1913, Kunstmuseum, Basel). The apocalyptic mood inherent in these things reached its apogee in his last large animalistic canvas, The Tower of the Blue Horses (1913).

Blue Horse Tower 1913

Mark then moved on to abstract painting, seeking to express the main motifs of his work in compositions that combined pure colorful and linear effects (1914).
With all his being, Franz Marc was against the war, but there was no question of emigration, evading military duties. After the outbreak of World War I, he volunteered for the front. In letters to his mother, the artist predicted death on the battlefield. And indeed, he died on March 4, 1916 in the battle of Verdun, which lasted almost six months and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Mark was killed by a shell fragment during the Verdun operation, at the age of 36, without realizing his creative plans to the end ..

Two blue horses 1913
Blue foals 1913

Sleeping Horses 1913

After Mark's death, friends organized his exhibitions in Berlin, and in the 1920s they collected and published the artist's statements about art. Under fascism, Mark's works were removed from museums.

Materials from WIKIPEDIA and from the site:
http://www.odessapassage.com/passage/magazine_details.aspx?id=36397

Vladimir Novikov Blue Horse 2006

The largest German painter of the XX century, one of the founders
and leaders of German Expressionism. Organizer of the Blue Rider Society
- along with August Macke.

Career

Franz was born on February 8, 1880 in Munich. His father Wilhelm was a lawyer and amateur landscape painter, and his grandparents were fond of copying the works of old masters. As a child, the boy was distinguished by shyness and daydreaming. Entering the gymnasium, he diligently studied philosophy and was fond of classical music, most of all he loved Wagner. At first, Mark dreamed of becoming a priest and doing theology. As a teenager, he thought about studying philosophy and in 1899 he entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Munich.

Conscription into the army paradoxically disrupted the student's plans and pushed him to paint. In 1900, Mark entered the Munich Academy of Arts. For several years he studied under the strict adherents of the academic tradition Gabriel Hackl and Wilhelm von Dietz. Formally, Munich at the beginning of the 20th century was the center of the artistic life of the German Empire. But fashion in the country was dictated by the popular secular portrait painter Franz von Lenbach, whose casual painting style gave rise to many imitators. In the bohemian environment, they were fond of symbolists: Arnold Böcklin and Franz von Stuck. The latter taught for some time at the Academy and lectured to Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, Mark's future associates. The artist's tastes, however, were formed primarily under the influence of two trips to Paris (in 1903 and 1907), where he visited exhibitions of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

During the years of study, Mark mastered the craft of the artist, becoming a real master, but the traditions of historical painting of the 19th century were alien to him. In search of his own style, he turned to the Art Nouveau style, then to German soil, then to Fauvism. But the impressionists, in particular Van Gogh, had the greatest influence on Mark. The painter decisively broke with naturalism. In 1907, he put on public display his programmatic work - a sketch of the tapestry "Orpheus and the Beasts". The poet depicted on it, surrounded by wild animals, resurrects half-forgotten images of the earthly paradise.

In May 1906, Mark began a relationship with Marie Schnuer, an artist from the Women's Academy of the Munich Artists' Association, and her student Maria Frank. The three of them went to the community of Kochel am See in upper Bavaria, where they spent the whole summer, both mistresses posed for the artist against the backdrop of pastoral landscapes. Ménage à trois did not last long, in 1907 Mark married Shnyur, although he was much more attracted to Frank. The marriage was concluded out of pity for the girl: being unmarried, she did not have the right to keep her son from her previous partner. In 1908, their union nevertheless broke up, Shnyur accused Mark of adultery with Frank, as a result of which he could not marry the latter. All these intrigues significantly affected the psychological state of Mark.

The 1910s became the most difficult years for the artist, full of tragic events, but also the most fruitful. A painful romance and subsequent break with Anette von Eckard, a married woman and mother of two children, who was 9 years older than him, made Mark completely turn away from humanity and withdraw into himself. However, in 1911 he went to London to circumvent German laws and marry Maria Frank.

The works of this period are apocalyptic in nature - they reflect the absolute rejection of modernity. The most outstanding work of the 1910s - and, perhaps, of the entire career of the artist - "The Fate of Animals" (1913). On the reverse side of the canvas, Mark left a note: “Und Alles Sein ist flammend Leid” (German: “And all living things burn in agony”). This truly visionary work was completed a year before the start of the First World War.

Blue rider.

A turning point can be found in the career of every significant artist, for Mark this moment was his acquaintance with the artist August Macke in January 1910. They not only became close friends - Macke pulled Mark out of creative isolation, and also awakened a deep theorist in him. The correspondence of artists contains disputes about avant-garde, painting techniques, questions of style and the philosophical component of painting. Many of Mark's quotes about art, which have become replicated, are taken from his letters.

In September 1910, Mark joined the New Munich Art Association (German: Neue Künstlervereinigung München), in February 1911 he met with its leader, the Russian abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky. In December, the Kandinsky-Make-Marc trinity breaks away from the Munich community and creates their own group. She was called "The Blue Rider" (German: Der blaue Reiter), her goal was to oppose the traditions of academic painting. Paul Klee, Marianna Veryovkina, Moses Kogan, Gabriela Münter and Alexei Yavlensky joined the group. The name, according to the memoirs of Kandinsky, was invented on a whim: “We both loved blue, Mark - horses, I - riders. And the name came by itself. The Munich Secession has consistently refused to show the work of contemporary artists for many years, so the need to form their own associations has been brewing for a long time.

Members of the Blue Rider were united by their love of primitive and medieval art, as well as modernist trends in painting - cubism and fauvism. Mark and Macke agreed that any person has an external and internal perception of the world, and they set the task of art to unite these spirit types of perception. The members of the group also dreamed of equalizing the rights of all existing art forms. They themselves, meanwhile, were by no means equal. “The blue rider is the two of us,” Kandinsky once said. She and Mark became the unspoken leaders, they were involved in the preparation of exhibitions and they also edited the almanac of the same name.

In December 1911, the first group exhibition of The Blue Rider was held at the Thanhauser Gallery in Munich (German: Thanhauser). Heinrich Campendonk, Lyonel Feininger, Alfred Kubin took part in it, along with the founders. The exposition attracted the attention of the general public and became a real historical event, pushing the group to the fore. The Blue Rider has become synonymous with German Expressionism. After the exhibition traveled to Berlin, Cologne, Hagen and Frankfurt. Everywhere the expressionists were pursued by the indignation of respectable inhabitants, the paintings were called "colored smudges" and "daubs". In the spring of 1912, an additional exhibition “The Blue Rider. Black and White”, it presented exclusively graphic works.

In May 1912, the group released the Blue Rider almanac, complete with author's illustrations. On the pages of the publication, the idea of ​​the inevitable onset of the "epoch of the Great Spiritual" was affirmed. It published many curious articles, essays, essays, in particular, an essay by the composer Arnold Schoenberg and David Burliuk's reflections on Russian futurism. Mark wrote three essays for the publication: Spiritual Treasures, Wild Germany, and Two Pictures.

In the same year, in Paris, he met the artist Robert Delaunay, an adherent of Orphism and an ardent admirer of cubism and futurism. Delaunay infected Mark with his hobbies, which led to noticeable changes in his style.

Franz Marc, being one of the leaders of the most important artistic association of the 20th century, kept himself somewhat aloof, almost aloof. In his works, the attraction to the pastoral ideal, the longing for romanticism was clearly expressed, they did not have the anguish, tension, exaltation of color and forms typical of expressionists. At the same time, under the influence of Italian futurism, Mark began to write more dynamic compositions. He decomposed forms into component planes, used linear effects and, in general, moved towards non-figurative art. So, in 1914, the painting "The Struggle of Forms" was born.

The Blue Rider group existed for only three years: the ambitious plans of the artists were disrupted by the First World War. The second issue of the almanac was never published, and after the death of August Macke at the front, it became clear that the association would no longer be revived. On the death of the 27-year-old painter, Mark wrote an obituary in which there was the following remark: “With his death, the most beautiful and bold turn of German artistic development suddenly broke; no one is able to continue it. Everyone goes his own way; and wherever we meet, we will always miss him. We artists know well that with his departure, the harmony of colors in German art in many of his melodies must fade, the sound has become muffled and dry. Of all of us, it was he who gave the color the brightest and purest sound, as bright and pure as his whole being was.

creative methods

Franz Marc's desk book was Alfred Brehm's Animal Life. The artist was deeply interested in the ratio of external appearance and internal organization, structure, structure. Therefore, he spent a lot of time in the zoological museum, scrupulously studying animals, making sketches from nature in the Berlin Zoo. Most of all he liked horses. An inexperienced viewer may be struck by the unnatural colors of his paintings, and a superficial resemblance to real animals may make one doubt the author's natural scientific knowledge. However, the chosen style does not contradict the anatomy at all. “Art,” the artist believed, “should not reflect, but should reveal the inner “truth” of things.” He, unlike the Fauvists, used bright colors to enhance the significance of animals. Each color in Mark's iconography has a specific meaning. Here is what he writes about color symbolism in a letter dated December 12, 1910 to his friend and artist A. Macke: “Blue is masculine, severe and spiritual, yellow is feminine, gentle, sensual and joyful, red is mass, matter, brutal color and heavy, which always struggles with the first two and submits to them. If you mix, for example, a strict spiritual blue with red, you thereby bring unbearable sadness to the blue, and then you need a calm yellow to add it to the purple color. But if you mix blue with yellow to green, you will awaken red, the mass, the earth." In the canvases painted after he developed this theory, Mark always emphasized the independent meaning of each color separately.

The artist often received questions about his favorite subjects. When Munich-based publisher Reinhard Pieper asked to comment on the fascination with animalism. Mark answered the following: “I do not aim to depict only animals ... I want to sharpen my perception of the organic rhythm of all things, to expand the pantheistic sense of the world, the living pulsating flow of blood in nature, trees, animals and air ... I don’t know a better way to such an “animation "of art than depicting animals."

"The Spirit Crushes Strongholds"

Franz Marc tried to express in his work the spiritual principle, to which, in his opinion, his contemporaries had lost interest. His mother, Sophia, was a strict Calvinist, the artist himself adhered to free pantheistic views, in his worldview religious mysticism and respect for science were bizarrely but organically combined. He believed that the art of the future would give form to scientific developments.

In a short essay titled "Spiritual Treasures," Mark dejectedly noted "humanity's general disinterest in new spiritual values." According to many expressionists, the path to new spiritual values ​​lies through unity with nature and the cosmos. For this reason, they, like, for example, Gauguin, were attracted by the way of life and creativity of peoples with archaic culture, who did not lose this primitive close connection with nature. The unity of the organic - including the animal - world and the cosmos is one of the key themes of Mark's work. In addition, like all members of the Blue Rider, Mark was looking for new ways to express himself and express the Spiritual in art. The artist's aphorism is known: "the spirit crushes fortresses."

As already mentioned, for all his mysticism, Mark was willingly interested in scientific achievements. He developed his own color theory, in which he tried to characterize the "mystical-immanent" structure of the universe. It should be noted that the cosmology and anti-civilizational mythology of Mark is very original and goes far enough from the traditional ones. Mark's myth-making is very accurately explained by himself in the essay “Two Pictures”: “In the literal sense of the word, humanity has slipped during this period the last stage of the millennium, which began with the collapse of the great ancient world. Then the "primitives" laid the foundations for a long development of the arts, and the first martyrs died for the new Christian ideal. Today, this long path of development has been passed in art and religion. But there still exists a vast sphere, littered with ruins, obsolete ideas and forms that have long since become the property of the past, but are still tenacious. Outdated ideas and works of art continue to lead a ghostly life, and you still stop in utter confusion before the Herculean work of driving them out and laying a free path for the new, already in expectation.

There is still debate whether Mark can be considered an animal painter, since one way or another, the main theme of his work was animals - primarily horses. However, for animal painters, the depiction of animals is an end in itself, which cannot be said about Mark. Thus, to rank him among the animalists - representatives of a narrow and specific genre - would mean to underestimate the scope of his work, to erase his philosophical and quasi-religious views. “Is there anything more mysterious for an artist than the reflection of nature in the eyes of an animal? Mark asked. - How does a horse or an eagle, a roe deer or a dog see the world? How poor and soulless is our idea of ​​placing animals in the landscape that our eyes see instead of penetrating into their souls.

The artist believed that animals existed before the biblical creation of the world. All his mature works can be conditionally divided into two groups: in one - pastoral, harmonious and peaceful paintings, in the other - marked by the seal of sorrow, reminiscent of the inevitability of death, sometimes apocalyptic. Mark felt sympathy for the dumb, but strong and beautiful animals, powerless in front of the man who tyrannized them. He found them purer, even more sublime than human beings. The artist was well aware of the reverent attitude towards animals of the monks from the Franciscan order. “From an early age, I perceived people as ugly. Animals seemed to me more beautiful and cleaner, ”he admitted.

According to Balek, The Tower of the Blue Horses (1913), Mark's last major animal painting, is a poetic vision, while The Fates of Animals is a confession. “Written with the help of colors-sounds, this picture is the pra-poetry, on which the artist relied as a source of rebirth of life in the days fatal to mankind,” the scientist writes.

A little later, Mark moved on to even more abstract painting. Quote from Klee “The more terrifying this world gets (especially these days), the more abstract art becomes; while in peacetime the world gives birth to realistic art” characterizes Mark’s life and creative path in the best possible way.

Death and the fate of heritage

Shortly after the start of World War I, Franz Marc volunteered for the front. At the front, he always had a small notebook for sketches, and his artistic talent came in handy in the war. The artist has developed a unique design of canvas awnings and covers that cover artillery from reconnaissance from the air. Using the technique of pointillism, he created an almost flawless camouflage. He painted nine “tarpaulin paintings” in various styles, Manet and Kandinsky became sources of inspiration for Mark, and camouflage in the style of the latter turned out to be most effective for shelter from aircraft flying at an altitude of two or more thousand meters.

The reason why the artist went to war, despite the fact that she was disgusting to him, is its "cleansing" potential. Mark believed - and in a sense he was right - that the First World War would radically change the world order and destroy the bourgeois order. He shared his thoughts with Kandinsky. He wrote to him in a letter: “Is it not too terrible a price to pay for cleansing?” But nothing could stop Mark: he himself predicted his untimely death in a letter to his mother. After the mobilization, Mark was included in the government list of especially valuable artists who should have been released from military duty. However, the order did not have time to reach the front. On March 4, 1916, Franz Marc died near Verdun (France) from a head wound. He was only 36 years old. That epochal battle lasted for six months and claimed several hundred thousand lives.

After Mark's death, his friends organized a posthumous retrospective exhibition. In the 1920s, a collection of statements and theoretical developments of the artist was published. His short life turned out to be surprisingly fruitful: 240 paintings, 451 drawings, 63 engravings, 87 sketches, 32 notebooks, as well as 17 sculptures and 30 objects of arts and crafts have survived to this day.

In 1936-1937. the Nazis proclaimed Mark a "degenerate artist" and demanded that about 130 of the artist's works be removed from museums. In 2011, Landscape with Horses was discovered in the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, whose father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, collected art that the Nazis considered “degenerate”.

Artist Franz Mark - friend and like-minded
Wassily Kandinsky, "The Blue Rider" German expressionism.

"My age, my beast,

who can

look into your pupils

And glue with his blood

Two centuries of vertebrae?

These lines of Osip Mandelstam are like an epigraph to the work, and to the whole life of Franz Mark. The turn of the century divided the short life of the German artist almost in half: he was born in 1880 and died in 1916 at the front, in the battle of Verdun. Franz Marc was among those masters who glued the vertebrae of two centuries together with the blood of his work: the path from the post-impressionist painting that ended the 19th century to the abstract art of the 20th century went through expressionism, and Marc was its key figure. He belonged to the number of Europeans who did not seem to notice the delimitation of countries on the eve of the First World War: together with Wassily Kandinsky, Mark became the founder of the legendary Blue Rider association, a creative union of Russian and German artists. Franz Marc was devoted to one theme: he painted and painted animals. Looking into the pupils of the beast, beautiful and free, he was looking for answers to the questions of his time and to the eternal questions of all times. The simple plots of his works seem idyllic: beautiful animals living in the middle of virgin nature. But the closer was the war that broke the spine of the century, the more clearly felt the longing in the eyes of his animals and the doom in the curves of their bodies.

Franz Mark. Red deer. 1912 G.

The life of Franz Marc developed quite well: he did not know such misfortunes that darkened the existence of many artists, such as misunderstanding of loved ones, non-recognition, loneliness, poverty. He was born in Munich, which at that time was one of the cultural capitals of Europe, in an intelligent family of hereditary lawyers. Franz's father - Wilhelm Mark - changed the family tradition and became an artist. His landscapes and genre paintings were successful in their time; on one of them we see the fifteen-year-old Franz, who is making something out of wood.

Wilhelm Mark. Portrait of Franz Marc. 1895

Having received an excellent gymnasium education, Franz was going to study theology at the University of Munich. For a thoughtful, sensitive young man, this seemed to be a good choice, but after completing his military service, he changed his plans, deciding to become an artist. From 1900 to 1903, Mark was a diligent student of the Munich Academy of Arts, until he got to Paris and saw with his own eyes the paintings of Manet and Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh. After fresh Parisian impressions, the stagnant academic atmosphere became unbearable for Mark. After leaving the walls of the academy, he rented a workshop in the Munich quarter of Schwabing and began to work independently.

Schwabing was the center of bohemian life, exciting acquaintances were quickly made here. Mark went through a stormy, depressed affair with a married lady, the artist Anette von Eckardt, and ended up in a situation of a painful love triangle, torn between two Marias, also artists, Maria Shnyur and Maria Frank. He married the beautiful and independent Maria Shnyur in 1907, but almost immediately realized his mistake. This marriage, which soon became formal, did not allow him to legalize relations with Maria Frank until 1911. Outwardly, they did not seem like a very suitable couple - Franz, a refined intellectual with noble features, and a round-faced Maria with a rude peasant face. But it was she, cordial and open, who became the woman of his life.

Franz Mark. Two cats. 1909

Both Marys are depicted in a small sketch "Two Women on the Mountain" (1906). This is one of the few works of the artist in which people are depicted. In almost all of his paintings, watercolors and engravings, we see animals: deer, bulls, cows, cats, tigers, monkeys, foxes, wild boars, but most often - horses. He fell in love with them forever during the years of military service.

Mark, an excellent draftsman, had a special talent for depicting animals. In addition, he specifically studied the anatomy of animals, his reference book was "Animal Life" by A. Brem, he spent whole days at the zoo, watching animals and making sketches. In all the works of the artist, whether it is a pencil sketch or a complex pictorial composition, an early realistic canvas or an expressionist painting, we unmistakably recognize the characteristic habit of the beast: the fragile grace of a roe deer, the springy energy of a tiger, the impulsiveness of a restless monkey, the slowness of a massive bull, the proud becoming of a horse.

Franz Mark. Cats on red drapery 1909-1910

However, it is impossible to call Franz Marc an animalist: the beast was not a realistic “nature” for him, but a higher being, a symbol of natural, pure, perfect and harmonious being. The literary gifted artist eloquently expressed his creative credo in articles and letters to friends: “My goals do not lie mainly in the field of animalistics. /…/ I am trying to increase my sense of the organic rhythm of all things, trying to pantheistically feel the trembling and flow of blood in nature, in trees, in animals, in the air. The “animal” vision of the world seemed to him like a window into the natural kingdom inaccessible to man: “Is there anything more mysterious for an artist than the reflection of nature in the eyes of a beast? How does a horse or an eagle, a roe deer or a dog see the world? How poor and soulless is our idea of ​​placing animals in the landscape that our eyes see, instead of penetrating into their souls..

August Macke. Portrait of Franz Marc. 1910

Many circumstances had a beneficial effect on the formation of the style of Franz Marc. These are trips to Paris in 1907 and 1912, where he came into contact with the art of his contemporaries, the Fauvists and Cubists, among whom Robert Delaunay was especially close to him. This is a friendship that began in 1910 with the young German expressionist August Macke, who for the few remaining years of his life (the twenty-seven-year-old Macke died at the front in 1914) became his like-minded person.

Munich, 1911. Left - Maria Mark and Franz Mark,
in the center - Wassily Kandinsky.

Mark's talent fully flourished in the circle of artists who were united in 1911 by the Blue Rider, a community whose soul was Wassily Kandinsky and himself, Franz Marc. “The blue rider is the two of us,” Kandinsky later said. Together, having appropriated, according to Kandinsky, "dictatorial powers", they prepared the exhibitions of The Blue Rider, edited together the almanac of the same name. Even the appearance of the name “The Blue Rider”, which, as Kandinsky recalled, was born at the coffee table, testifies to the ease of mutual understanding between the two artists: “ We both loved blue, Mark loved horses, I loved riders. And the name came by itself. (Just like Kandinsky, Mark attached symbolic meaning to color: blue meant for him masculinity, firmness and spirituality.) The powerful personality of Kandinsky in no way suppressed Mark. On the contrary, his individual style at the time of their collaboration developed very dynamically: moving from expressionism to abstraction, Mark kept pace with European art.

Franz Mark. Blue horse. 1911

Let's compare Mark's three paintings that have become classics of German expressionism and were painted with an interval of about a year - "The Blue Horse" (1911), "Tiger" (1912) and "Foxes" (1913). Looking at the Blue Horse canvas, you understand that the artist’s words about the “organic rhythm of all things” are not theorizing, but a deep genuine feeling. The figure of a horse, the landscape and the plant in the foreground are united by an undulating rhythm: the motif of the arc is clearly repeated in the outlines of the mountains, in the silhouette of the animal and in the bends of the leaves. Occupying the entire canvas in height, written in perspective from below and therefore towering above the viewer, the figure of the horse is majestic and monumental, like a statue of the deity of these mountains. There is a lot in the picture that is characteristic of Mark - bright fantastic colors, the absence of air, dense filling of the canvas.

Franz Mark. Tiger.1912

If in The Blue Horse the generalized figure of the animal retains the integrity of the form, and the alpine landscape remains recognizable, then in The Tiger Mark transforms the real image more tangibly. The contours of the tiger's figure are outlined with swift zigzags and broken lines, and the surface of the body is divided into triangles and trapeziums. The artist seems to expose the muscles hidden under the skin of the beast, reveals the structure of the animal's body. The saturated background of the picture, consisting of a pile of intricately intersecting planes, partly continues and repeats the lines set in the figure of the beast, so that the tiger seems to be an integral part of the environment, and does not dominate it, like a blue horse. This background is, in fact, a pure abstraction, although, of course, one can imagine that the artist depicted a thicket in which a tiger lurked, lurking prey.

Franz Mark. Foxes. 1913

In the painting "Foxes" we see the complete interpenetration of forms, the blurring of the line between the animal and its environment. It seems that the artist "cuts" the figures of two foxes into fragments and mixes them, like pieces of a puzzle. At the same time, one clearly traced detail - a narrow, with a characteristic slope, the muzzle of a fox - sets the theme of the picture and connects an almost abstract canvas with reality. These formal searches had a serious spiritual meaning for Mark: he was looking for a way from the external appearance of things (“the appearance is always flat”) to their inner essence and saw the goal of art in “disclosing unearthly life that secretly resides in everything, in destroying the mirror of life with the fact to face life."

Franz Mark. The fate of animals. 1913

In Mark's works, the natural world appears whole and conflict-free, there is no opposition of predators and their victims, he never depicts hunting scenes, the suffering of animals, extremely rarely - dead animals. All the more significant was the appearance of the painting "The Fates of Animals", written in 1913 - the last pre-war year. The subtitle "Trees show their rings, and animals show their veins" emphasizes the tragic idea of ​​the canvas: only cut down trees expose the rings, only dead animals expose their insides. The forest thicket appears in the picture as a symbol of the hidden world of nature, which is destroyed and perishes under the pressure of an unknown formidable force. In the apocalyptic chaos, we distinguish predatory red flashes and rays, falling trunks, restless horses, frightened huddled deer, wild boars seeking shelter, and in the center of the canvas - as the personification of an innocent victim - a blue doe, raising its head to the sky.

Franz Mark. Drawing from the front notepad

This requiem painting, which became a prophecy of the coming war, is one of the last major works of Mark, in which he retained a connection with figurative painting. In 1914, he managed to write several abstract compositions (Tirol, Struggling Forms) and, obviously, stood on the threshold of a new stage in his work. However, in the front-line notebook, Mark, next to abstractions, still drew deer and his favorite horses. It is impossible to say for sure how the fate of the artist would have developed if he had survived the Verdun meat grinder. In the history of art of the 20th century, Franz Marc forever remained a swift horseman, galloping on a free blue horse of expressionism.

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