Franz Marc (1880-1916) unique talent was recognized and nurtured at the Munich Academy. On several trips to Paris, he was impressed by Van Gogh works, as he saw it for the first time. These works were significantly and helped him to develop autonomous artistic language. Through his friend August Macke, Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Munter and Alfred Kubin, he knew about the expressionist artists association founded in 1911 "The Blue Rider". At the outbreak of the First World War Marc was drafted into military service and fell two years later in the grave fighting at Verdun.

Marc grappled with naturalism, the Art Nouveau and the French Impressionism, but was looking for a new expression language to represent "the spiritual essence of things" can. With never a previously unknown consequence he opened the way for an art in the colours far beyond the naturalistic representation acquired a symbolic meaning: "Every colour must say clearly who and what it is, and has to this on a clear form", said Marc. Blue is the colour of the spiritual with him, red is love, passion and vulnerability, yellow is the sun and the femininity.

In the center of his painting were in particular animals, for him it symbolized purity and originality in contrast to people. Just like Kandinsky he was looking for the renewal of the spiritual in art.

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