(1887-1914)

Bright yellow, bright red, vivid blue: The intensity and unique brightness of the colours are typical of August Macke works. Macke pictures shows an intact world and people. August Macke was a painter man of the Rhenish exuberance and perhaps for this reason today, he is one of the most famous German painters of the 20th Century.

Macke was a member of the artists association "Blue Rider" and most important representatives of the Rhenish expressionism. He is considered as the greatest German true talent for colours of his generation. He is one of the greats in the art of the 20th Century with his drawings, sketches and drafts.

August Macke, born on 1.3.1887 in Meschede, began his studies at the school and academy in Dusseldorf, but broke it prematurely. On trips to France, Italy and the Netherlands, he studied the Impressionists. With the artists of the "Blue Rider", whom he knew since 1911 several times and participated in the eponymous Almanac. Financial backing was secured by his sponsor Bernhard Koehler, an uncle of his wife Elisabeth.

Macke had already found his style of unmistakable individuality. Analytical Cubism oriented tectonic composition of Cézanne and Matisse's two-dimensionality he combined with the pure colours of fauvism. The prismatic colours were the main elements with which August Macke composed his paintings. In this context the colours are scales of colourful shapes as the tones and chords of the musicians. His friendship in 1910 with Franz Marc allowed a stay at Tegernsee Lake. Pictures created here showed Macke's isensitivity to lighting effects, the famous Tunis journey increased in watercolours created in 1914 with Paul Klee and Louis Moillet. The Simplification of form and the luminosity of the colours label this series of works.

On the Cologne Sonderbund exhibition organized by Macke in 1913, were show his Rhenish Expressionists works for the first time together with those of the European avant-garde.

Together with his wife Elisabeth and his son Walter Macke lived in Switzerland since 1913. The family happiness last only briefly. At the beginning of the war August Macke was in battles with Perthes-les-Hurlus in Champagne on 09/26/1914. His friend Franz Marc commented: "The greedy war is a hero's death richer, but the German art hero have become poorer."

Representation of typical scenes of daily life in painting, which can distinguish between peasant, bourgeois and courtly themes.

The genre reached its peak and immense popularity in the Dutch painting of the 17th century. In the 18th century, especially in France, the courtly and gallant painting comes to the fore while in Germany the bourgeois character was emphasised.

Artistic movement that replaced the Impressionism in the early 20th century.

Expressionism is the German form of the art revolution in painting, graphics and sculpture, which found its precursor in the works of Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin in the late 19th century. The Expressionists tried to advance to the basic elements of painting. With vibrant, unbroken colors in large areas and with the emphasis on line and the resulting targeted suggestive expressiveness they fought against the artistic taste established by bourgeoisie.

The most important representatives of Expressionism were the founders of "Die Brücke" (The Bridge): Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Pechstein, Otto Mueller and Franz Marc, August Macke, among others.

Masters of Viennese Expressionism are Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka.

The Fauvism is the French form of Expressionism.

Related Links:
Brücke
Fauvism