The Large Blue Horses by Franz Marc

       Alongside Vasily Kandinsky, Franz Marc started Der Blaue Reiter (German for "The Blue Rider"). Taking hints from Expressionism and Impressionism, Der Blaue Reiter featured non-representational colors and abstracted forms. Regardless, Der Blaue Reiter was short-lived, spanning only three years from 1911 to 1914, after which World War I broke out and ended the movement.
       Franz Marc's style of painting frequently featured animals in his works, which he believed were more spiritually pure than humanity. Indeed, throughout his entire career, Marc painted hundreds of works featuring animals: horses, foxes, cats, steers, and so forth. I will focus on one work that he painted in 1911 titled The Large Blue Horses




      Curving gracefully throughout the work, the horses are a deep dark blue, and are galloping across red hills under a yellow sky. Marc considered blue a masculine color, and yellow a feminine color. With the mix of blue and yellow used in this work, the horses are a wild and free power under the gentle guidance of the yellow sky to prevent that power from overflowing. The additional colors of white, turquoise, and green that appear alongside blue and yellow help give the work a sense of harmony that flows around its entirety.
      When World War I began, Franz Marc was eventually killed in action while fighting for Germany. When Germany fell under Nazi rule, over 100 of his works were removed from public view, being cited as "degenerate."


       Related Sources:

       http://www.moma.org/explore/collection/ge/styles/blaue_reiter
       http://www.knowitall.org/artopia/painting/artcritic/text/text.cfm?artWorkID=16
       http://www.art.com/gallery/id--a24/franzmarc-posters.htm?ui=3274C734D75B4B99BFCD4EDF2C41A3EE
       http://www.franzmarc.org/