Franz Marc

A central figure in German Expressionism, Franz Marc, was a founding member of the short-lived but influential ‘Der Blau Reiter’ (The Blue Rider) - a group of artists who sought to confront the alienation of a modernizing world by promoting the spiritual value of art. Marc believed in the symbolic and emotive power of color, and explored the relationship between visual art and music. Animals were frequent subjects in his work, as he saw them as closer to nature than humans, free from the corruption of his own time. Marc died in combat in 1916.