Franz Marc Kerstin Elizabeth (Lisa) Edwards

Childhood  Born on February 8, 1880, in Munich, Germany.  His father, Wilhelm, was a professional landscape painter. His mother, Sophie, was an Alsacian from a strict Calvinist tradition.  His grandparents were amateur artists who copied the masters.  According to his first biographer, Alois Schardt, Marc was so ugly at birth that his father fainted when he took a first close look at him.

Education  His father encouraged him to study art but he showed no interest in it at first.  As a young boy, Marc studied theology intensely and originally wanted to become a priest. In 1898, he gave up that goal to study philosophy at the University of Munich.  In 1900, he abandoned this idea and decided to take painting classes at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, where his father worked as a professor.

Impressionism in Paris  At that time, Paris was considered the center of the arts, where impressionism had revolutionized the traditional art world.  Traveling to Paris and studying the modern French painters was considered a necessity for a progressive young artist.

Discovering Impressionism  Marc took several trips to Paris, the first in 1903 when he had his first contacts with the Impressionists.  He was deeply influenced by the works of the modern French painters, especially the art of Vincent van Gogh.

Impressionism  Impressionism is a style of painting characterized chiefly by depicting the natural appearances of objects by means of short brush strokes or dabs of primary unmixed colors in order to give the impression of reflected light. It concentrates on the general tone and effect produced by a subject, without elaboration of details.

Troubles with depression  Marc’s artistic development was accompanied by feelings of depression. He spent summers in the mountains in 1905 and 1906 and also traveled to Greece attempting to recuperate from unhappy love affairs.  On his return from Greece, still depressed, he wrote “At present I have only one purpose in life – to drown it in my painting…and to strangle all the passionate vital instincts.”  In 1907, this period of anxiety ended when he left for Paris again on his wedding night, fleeing his newly-wed wife, Marie Schnür.

Inspired by Nature  Marc looked towards nature and animals for inspiration. His constant thematic concern was the relationship between animal and human spheres.  For Marc, animals represented a spiritual attitude.

Inspired by Nature  He wrote: “People with their lack of piety, especially men, never touched my true feelings. But animals with their virginal sense of life awakened all that is good in me.”  Marc felt that animals were somehow more natural or pure than people. He believed that through animals he could represent his own spiritual feeling.

A Famous Work  Marc’s most important work of 1908 was Large Lenggries Horse Painting 1. He had cut the painting in pieces and used it to pad the roof of his home. In 1936 the painting was found and restored.

Other Interests  In 1910, Marc met the artist August Macke, who further deepened Marc’s understanding of the coloristic advances in France.  In 1911 Marc joined a group known as the Neue Künstlervereinigung, and became a close friend of Wassily Kandinsky, chief spokesman of the group.

Other Interests  The Neue Künstlervereinigung’s goal was to create art, and feature artists, that did not focus solely on emotional subjects.  Soon, the group no longer wanted to feature Marc’s or Kandinsky’s most modern works because they were too abstract. The group stated that they could not accept incomprehensible paintings.  The two artists were forced to withdraw themselves from the group and they founded another artistic movement, Der Blaue Reiter.

Der Blaue Reiter  They named the group Der Blaue Reiter after one of Kandinsky’s paintings called Le Chevalier Bleu, and also because of both of their interests in the horse and rider.

Der Blaue Reiter  The first exhibitions of The Blue Rider included works by Kandinsky, Marc, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Henri Rousseau, Robert Delaunay, and Arnold Schönberg.  Other members of the group include August Macke, Paul Klee, Albert Bloch, Gabriele Münter, Heinrich Campendonk, and David and Vladimir Burliuk.

Der Blaue Reiter  The aim of Der Blaue Reiter was to call attention to new ideas and theories about the arts, including painting, music, and theatre. Much of this focus was to use these three art forms as complimentary to one another, incorporating many of the same ideas interchangeably throughout them.  Another large focus of the group was to express spirituality through the arts.

Der Blaue Reiter  The Blue Riders believed that colors, shapes and forms had equivalence with sounds and music, and sought to create color harmonies which would be purifying to the soul.  The artists who took part in The Blue Rider were considered to be the pioneers of abstract art or abstract expressionism. Their work promoted individual expression and broke free from any artistic restraints.

Life’s End  When, World War I began, Marc volunteered for the German military service, along with his good friend August Macke.  Marc kept kept a notebook with drawings for the paintings he would create as soon as he was done with the military.  Marc was killed in action, near Verdun, France, on March 4, 1916.

Franz Marc Museum  A house that Marc lived in in Kochel-am-See was made into a museum in It has about twenty of his paintings, as well as numerous sketches and drawings, and paintings by other Blue Rider artists.

Works Cited   erview.php erview.php  anz_Marc.html anz_Marc.html  anz_Marc.html anz_Marc.html   arc/photos.html arc/photos.html