Is there a more mysterious idea for an artist than painting how nature is reflected in the eyes of an animal? How does a horse see the world or an eagle, a deer or a dog?

This quotation shows the intention of the German artist Franz Marc (1880 - 1916) - to empathize with the inner nature of animals and to come to a new awareness of the world.

Marc was born on 8 February, 1880, in Munich, Germany and his father was an artist and his mother a strict Christian. First, Marc planned to become a priest, but then he decided to go to the college of art in Munich. It soon became clear to him that it would be better if he devloped his own unique style as opposesd to merely imitating that of the people he studied.

He stopped his studies and acquired his own atelier¹ in 1903. At this time he made trips to Paris with his brother, where he began his acquaintance with the work of the impressionists and later with Van Gogh's and Gauguin's paintings. In 1911 he founded the artistic foundation, Der Blaue Reiter, together with Wassily Kandinsky. They organized exhibitions in Berlin and Munich.

Inspired by Kandinsky's paintings, Marc began to experiment with colours. One of the earlier works where this can be seen is 'Horse In Landscape' (1910). In this work, there's a purple horse with a blue mane and tail looking over a landscape defined by yellow, red, green and blue areas. The horse is standing with its back to the observer, so that it can take the viewer's perspective.

Franz Marc developed his own idea of colour. For him, blue represents masculinity and intellect, yellow femininity and sensuality. You can see this clearly when you compare the work Die großen blauen Pferde('The Big Blue Horses') (1911) with Die kleinen gelben Pferde' ('The Little Yellow Horses') (1912).

The horses in the former painting have a serious outlook, whereas the latter painting is much more cheerful. The background has a cosmic touch with clouds and a blue arc above them.

Apart from horses, Marc painted dogs, cats, monkeys, cows and a lot of other animals. Other motifs are rare.

From looking at his later works, it becomes obvious that he began to paint much more abstractly than at the beginning of his career. There are geometrical forms which overlay and come through each other. Take a look at Stallungen ('Stables') (1913) and Kämpfende Formen ('Fighting Forms') (1913).

Unfortunately Marc's work was interrupted by the First World War. He became a soldier in France. His sketches from the front line show fear and worry about the war, although he saw the possibility of creating a new world order.

On 4 March, 1916, he was fatally hit by a shell splinter near Verdun.

In 1937, Marc was seen as a degenerate artist and his paintings were removed from German museums. Today he is seen as one of the most significant artists of the 20th Century.