Franz Marc 23rd March

 Franz Marc

Franz Marc's use of colour and warm, rich tones was in part harboured by his association with the group "Der Blaue Rieter" (The Blue Riders). Along with Kandinsky, he helped to found this group which was oriented with the importance of colour and placed great value on expression and symbolism.

Franz Marc's mature work portrays animals, usually in natural settings. Marc's work shows bright primary colours, an almost cubist portrayal of animals, stark simplicity and a profound sense of emotion. An example is his work 'Foxes'. Marc gave an emotional meaning or purpose to the colours he used in his work: blue was used to portray masculinity and spirituality, yellow represented feminine joy, and red encased the sound of violence, and life and solidity.

Franz Marc makes use of these colours in Fate of the Animals. The blue deer in the middle is a male that holds a lot of spirituality. Some scholars believe that the blue deer is seen as a sacrifice, whose colour and up-looking posture further prove.

  




Marc had completed the work in 1913. On the rear of the canvas, Marc wrote, "Und Alles Sein ist flammend Leid" ("And all being is flaming agony"). Marc wrote to his wife of the painting, "[it] is like a premonition of this war—horrible and shattering. I can hardly conceive that I painted it." This work is characteristic of the sense of apocalypse and doom which began to show in Marc's work at this time and could be related to his feelings on the impending war.

In a 1915 letter to his wife Maria, Marc explains that this change in his art occurred because he began to see the ugliness in animals which he had previously thought only existed in humans. He states that he was no longer able to see the beauty which animals had once represented for him. The animal motifs which once conveyed a sense of emotion no longer held their appeal and possibility. The application of paint and the division of the picture plane through the use of lines and geometric shapes now carried the emotional charge previously conveyed by animals.