DER BLAUE REITER

Many artists during the first decade of the 20th century were dissatisfied with the teachings of Art Academies and wanted to be among the leaders . While the early work of the Die Brucke artists drew on the influence of Gauguin, van Gogh and the Post Impressionists in general, in the years from 1905-1908, it moved towards a distinctive ‘Expressionist’ style. Adopting a dazzling bright palette, the artists painted thick impasto with short, sculpting strokes.

In Southern Germany a different group of painters had gathered around Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), a Russian lawyer turned painter, who had moved to Munich in 1896.  The Blue Rider (or in German Der Blaue Reiter) was a German Expressionist movement that was established in December 1911 by Kandinsky, Marc and Gabriele Münter.  Painters Kandinsky and Marc worked on an almanac in which they showed their artistic conceptions. The title of the almanac, which then became the name of the group, Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), came from the painting by Kandinsky. His Blaue Reiter ( Blue Rider ) was an adventure in the simplification and stylization of forms and the connection between music and painting.

1903

Kandinsky and Marc chose the name Blaue Reiter to poetically express two themes important to them. First, “blue”: the importance of colour over design, a stylistic decision that placed them within the Expressionist group, although they differed in several ways from the Die Brucke group. The second element- the rider- was very dear to Kandinsky, who in those days in 1912 published his aesthetic work, Concerning the Spiritual in Art. For him the rider was symbolic of the contemporary artist who sees an ethical and spiritual role for his art, a mission that consists in defending and spreading the values of beauty and truth.

German Expressionism reached its peak with Der Blaue Reiter and, although the group disintegrated at the onset of World War 1, Expressionist Art became widespread in Germany after the conflict had ended. When the Nazi’s came to power in 1933, they suppressed Expressionist Art along with other avante-garde art they considered degenerate. From the mid 1930s Expressionism was to influence many young American artists with the exodus of numerous European artists to the USA.

WASSILY KANDINSKY  It is Wassily Kandinsky, the most influential member of the group, who is most often credited with the distinction of painting the first ``abstract'' picture, in 1910. Kandinsky, himself an accomplished musician, once said ”Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul. ” The concept that colour and musical harmony are linked has a long history, intriguing scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton. Kandinsky used colour in a highly theoretical way associating tone with timbre (the sound's character), hue with pitch, and saturation with the volume of sound. He even claimed that when he saw colour he heard music.

It was Kandinsky who found that the ``interior necessity'', which alone could inspire true art, was forcing him to leave behind the representational image. By the time Der Blaue Reiter was established, he was already ``abstracting'' from the image, using it as a creative springboard for his pioneering art. Seeing a painting of his own, lying on its side on the easel one evening, he had been struck by its beauty, a beauty beyond what he saw when he set it upright. It was the liberated colour, the formal independence, that so entranced him.

Kandinsky, a determined and sensitive man, was a good prophet to receive this vision. He preached it by word and by example, and even those who were suspicious of this new freedom were frequently convinced by his paintings.  Improvisation 31 has a less generalized title, Sea Battle, and by taking this hint we can indeed see how he has used the image of two tall ships shooting cannonballs at each other, and abstracted these specifics down into the glorious commotion of the picture. Though it does not show a sea battle, it makes us experience one, with its confusion, courage, excitement, and furious motion. Kandinsky says all this mainly with the colour, which bounces and balloons over the centre of the picture, roughly curtailed at the upper corners, and ominously smudged at the bottom right. There are also smears, whether of paint or of blood. The action is held tightly within two strong ascending diagonals, creating a central triangle that rises ever higher. This rising accent gives a heroic feel to the violence.

Defining Abstract Art Abstract art, nonfigurative art, non-objective art, and nonrepresentational art are loosely related terms. Abstraction indicates a departure from reality in depiction of imagery in art. Total abstraction bears no trace of any reference to anything recognizable.

Wassily Kandinsky “Murnau-View with Railroad and Castle” 1909 36x49cm

Kandinsky “St George ll “ 1911

Kandinsky “Improvisation lll “ 1909 94x130cm

Franz Marc 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.

Depictions of Animals In attempting to convey and emphasise the spiritual aspect of his subject matter, Marc often depicted animals in non-naturalistic colours. He developed his own colour theory and symbolism, which equated the three primary colours with qualities and emotions.  In its simplest terms, Marc associated blue with masculinity, and red and yellow with femininity since they are more earthy colours, but he also associated yellow with joy and happiness. Blue was viewed by Marc throughout his career to be the most deeply spiritual of the three colours. His decision to apply non-representational colours to animals could perhaps have been an attempt at stepping away from the material world and identifying the need to use non-worldly colours in order to portray the spiritual. 

Franz Marc “Small Blue Horses” 1911 61x101cm

Franz Marc “The Fate of the Animals” 1913