FAMOUS ARTIST BIRTHDAY, FRANZ MARC - HORSE IN A LANDSCAPE - MINI MASTER SERIES

MINI MASTER by Sea Dean 4" x 4" Acrylic on canvas panel

HORSE IN A LANDSCAPE
BY SEA DEAN AFTER FRANZ MARC
MINI MASTER 
4" x 4" Canvas Panel
(better photo coming in daylight)

Homage to Famous Artist on their birthday. To view my Gallery or purchase this painting please visit Daily Paintworks. Larger originals or prints may be available by contacting me.

"Horse in a Landscape" above is part of the current Mini Master series and can be purchased via Daily Paintworks. The second painting is one of my rare oils, 12" x 16", painted on canvas panel and available by contacting me. The use of colour and the almost confrontational stab at convention by seeing the horse from the rear, absolutely captivates me. As you see, it is a painting I have attempted many times, each one with a little more understanding of the complexity. I may be tempted to do a week of Franz Marc works because I find it almost impossible to choose just one as inspiration.

Horse in a Landscape by Sea Dean after Franz Marc 12" x 16" Oil on Panel

Franz has been my favourite painter for 45 years. I love his choice of colour, I love his experimentation and I love the deep thought that went into his work. To me he is the Master of all Masters. For that reason, this post is longer than the norm - I do not apologize.

FRANZ MARC

Franz Marc was born in 8th February 1880 in Munich, then the capital of the Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire. For all the 8's in his birthdate he wasn't the luckiest of people. His life was cut short, far before his prime when he was mistakenly sent to the front in the WWI. The order for his recall arrived a day late. 

His father, Wilhelm, was a professional landscape painter; his mother, a strict Calvinist. Both had an influence of Marc with his early work rooted in the landscape and later in spirituality. He has been called "The pioneer of spiritual abstraction".

In 1900, Marc entered the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, where his teachers included Gabriel von Hackl and Wilhelm von Diez. In 1903 and 1907, he spent time in Paris, France, visiting the city's museums and copying many paintings, which was the traditional way for artists to study and develop technique. 

Young Marc frequented artistic circles in Paris, meeting  many artists, including famous actress Sarah Bernhardt. In his twenties, Marc was involved in several stormy relationships, including an affair with Annette von Eckardt, a married antique dealer nine years his senior. He married twice, first to Marie Schnuer, then to Maria Franck.

Early on, Marc was drawn to the work of Vincent van Gogh as can be seen in an early painting "Sheaf of Grain". In 1911, Marc founded Der Blaue Reiter alongside an artist circle with August Macke, Wassily Kandinsky and others who had split from the Neue Künstlervereinigung. Marc showed in the premier Der Blaue Reiter exhibition in Munich, December 1911. In 1912, he met Robert Delaunay, whose futurism and use of colour facinated him. From then on, Marc created increasingly abstract art influenced by futurism and cubism.

Most of Marc's mature work shows animals in natural settings. His work is characterized by bright primary color, stark simplicity, an almost cubist view of animals and a profound sense of emotion. Marc gave an emotional meaning to colors: blue for masculinity and spirituality, yellow for feminine joy and red represented the sound of violence. 

Marc was conscripted as a cavalryman in WW!, but worked on military camouflage. He created a series of nine tarpaulin covers in in broadly pointillist style varying "from Manet to Kandinsky", saying that the latter was probably the most effective for anti-aircraft. In 1916, the government ordered all notable artists withdraw from combat, but before orders reached the front, Marc was struck in the head and killed instantly during the Battle of Verdun.

His work gained attention with influential circles during his life time; something most artists aspire to, but his early death cut short what promised to be a stunning career. Marc made some sixty woodcuts, lithographic prints and many paintings. Franz Marc died 4 March 1916 (aged just 36) at Braquis, France

When the National Socialists took power, they condemned Marc as an entarteter Künstler (degenerate artist) and ordered his works removed from German museums. His painting “Landscape With Horses”, painted in 1910, was discovered in 2011 with over a thousand other paintings, in the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt whose father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, was an early collector of “degenerate.” art.

Find out more about Franz Marc here and here


Cat # 14032 Horse in a Landscape after Franz Marc