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Franz Marc Quotes (1880-1916)
Painter
About Franz Marc
Franz Marc (February 8, 1880 - March 4, 1916) was a German painter, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a co-founding member of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), in Munich, together with Kandinsky. He is famous for his colorful animal-paintings.
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“I walked [along impressionist paintings in the Paris' museums, 1907] like a roe-deer in an enchanted forest, for which it has always yearned.”
“Is there any more mysterious idea for an artist than the conception of how nature is mirrored in the eyes of an animal? How does a horse see the world, or an eagle, or a doe, or a dog?”
“In a letter to August Macke, from Sindelsdorf 12 April 1911; taken from [http://www.zeno.org/Kunst/M/Marc,+Franz/Briefe/Briefe+1897-1914/55.+Brief+an+August+Macke, (transl. F. Heijnsbroek)”
“Art is nothing but the expression of our dream; the more we surrender to it the closer we get to the inner truth of things, our dream-life, the true life that scorns questions and does not see them.”
“The editors of the Blaue Reiter will now be the starting point for new exhibitions.. .We will try to become the center of the new movement. The association may assume there the role of the new (Scholle).”
“I can in no other way overcome my imperfections and the imperfections of life than by translating the meaning of my existence into the spiritual, into that which is independent of the mortal body, that is, the abstract.”
“In war we are all equal, but among a thousand good men, a bullet hit an irreplaceable one.. .We painters know well that with the loss of his harmony [ of August Macke ], the color in German art will become many shades paler..”
“The impure men and women who surrounded me (and particularly the men), did not arouse any of my real feelings; while the natural feeling for life possessed by animals set in vibration everything good in me. [from the front of World War 1.].”
“It is impossible to explain the recent works of these 'savages' as a formal development and new interpretation of Impressionism.. .The most beautiful prismatic colors and the celebrated Cubism are now meaningless goals for these 'savages'.”
“I make the most outrageous demands on my imagination and leave aside everything else, theory and nature study, as other people understand them. This is the only way I can work, drawing on nothing but my own faculty of imagination with I feed without stint – except in working hours.”
“I am sure of one thing: many silent readers and young people full of energy will secretly be grateful to us, will be fired by enthusiasm for this book [the Blaue Reiter Almanac ] and will judge the world in accordance with it.”
“I cannot get over the strange conflict between my estimation of their ideas [the artists of Italian Futurism ] most of which I find brilliant and fruitful, and my view of the [their] pictures [he saw on the Walden exhibition in Berlin, Spring 2012], which strike me as, without a doubt, utterly mediocre.”
“The harvest of your Summer [1910] is displayed on our walls. I like some of them terrifically. The 'certainty' with which most of it is done makes me feel ashamed of myself. The thousand steps that I need to take for a picture are of no advantage, as I sometimes foolishly used to think. Things must change.”
“I am trying to intensify my feeling for the organic rhythm in all things, trying to establish a pantheistic contact with the tremor and flow of blood in nature, in animals, in the air – trying to make it all into a picture, with new movements and with colours that reduce our old easel paintings to absurdity.”
“Dear August.. .I want to start like a child, to express my impression in front of nature with three colors and a few lines, and then add to forms and colors, where it requires the expression, that the working process is only a dedication, and never a removal. Only we painters know how stupidly difficult this is.”
“For days I have seen nothing but the most awful scenes that the human mind can imagine.. .Stay calm and don't worry: I will come back to you – the war will end this year. I must stop; the transport of the wounded, which will take this letter along, is leaving. Stay well and calm as I do. [from the battlefield at Verdun]”
“Who are these 'savages' in Germany? For the most part they are both well-known and widely disparaged: Die Brücke in Dresden, the 'Neue Sezession' in Berlin, and 'Die Neue Vereinigung' in Munich.”
“Art today is moving in directions of which our forebears had no inkling; the Horsemen of the Apocalypse are heard galloping through the air; artistic excitement can be felt all over Europe – new artists are signalling to one another from all sides; a glance, a touch of the hand, is enough to convey understanding. [co-authored with Wassily Kandinsky ]”
“In this time of the great struggle for a new art we fight like disorganized 'savages' against an old, established power. The battle seems to be unequal, but spiritual matters are never decided by numbers, only by the power of ideas. The dreaded weapons of the 'savages' are their new ideas. New ideas kill better than steel and destroy what was thought to be indestructible.”
“We are also convinced that we can already proclaim the first signs of the time. The first works of a new era are tremendously difficult to define. Who can see clearly what their aim is and what is to come; But just the fact that they do exist and appear in many places today, sometimes independently of each other, and that they possess inner truth, makes us certain that they are the first signs of the coming new epoch.. .The hour is unique. Is it too daring to call attention to the small, unique signs of the time?”
“The people itself ( and I do not mean the 'masses') has always given art its essential style. The artist merely clarifies and fullfils the will of the people. But when the people does not know what it wants, or worst of all, wants nothing.. ..then its artists, driven to seeking their own forms, remain isolated, and become martyrs.. .Folk art – that is, the feeling of people for artistic form – can arise again only when the whole jumble of worn-out art concepts of the nineteenth century has been wiped from the memory of generations.”
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Franz Marc on Die Brücke 2 quotes
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What Franz Marc Said About Others
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Franz Marc on August Macke 2 quotes
“In war we are all equal, but among a thousand good men, a bullet hit an irreplaceable one. We painters know well that with the loss of his harmony [of August Macke], the color in German art will become many shades paler..”
Franz Marc on Wassily Kandinsky
“Can you imagine a music in which tonality (that is, the adherence to any key) is completely suspended? I was constantly reminded of Kandinsky's large composition which also permits no trace of tonality.. ..and also of Kandinsky's 'jumping spots' in hearing this music [of Schönberg ], which allows each tone sounded to stand on its own (a kind of white canvas between the spots of color). Schönberg proceeds from the principle that the concepts of consonance and dissonance do not exist at all. A so-called dissonance is only a mere remote consonance – an idea which now occupies me constantly while painting..”
Franz Marc on Arnold Schoenberg
“Can you imagine a music in which tonality (that is, the adherence to any key) is completely suspended? I was constantly reminded of Kandinsky's large composition which also permits no trace of tonality.. ..and also of Igor Kandinsky's 'jumping spots' in hearing this music [of Schoenberg], which allows each tone sounded to stand on its own (a kind of white canvas between the spots of color). Schoenberg proceeds from the principle that the concepts of consonance and dissonance do not exist at all. A so-called dissonance is only a more remote consonance – an idea which now occupies me constantly while painting.. - note 6”
Quotes About Franz Marc
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Quote of Kandinsky on Franz Marc
Max Beckmann on Franz Marc
August Macke on Franz Marc
“I have just been thinking that the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) does not really represent my work. I have always been convinced that other things of mine are more important.. .Narcism, fake heroism, and blindness have a lot to answer for, in the Blaue Reiter. All those high-sounding words about the birth of a great spiritual moment still resounding in my ears. Kandinsky can air his personal opinion about that or any other revolution he cares to mention. But I dislike the whole thing.. .Take my advice – work, and don't spent so much time thinking about blue riders or blue horses.”
William R. Valentiner on Franz Marc
“I found time to ask [Franz Marc] about these [German Expressionist] artistic endeavors in Germany, the subject of an impassioned conflict for some time before the war. Because of my professional activity in America in the years preceding the war, I had almost no contact with German artists. Thus I had never seen any paintings by Marc or by his friend August Macke, whose death at the beginning of the war had deeply distressed Marc.. .I never had the opportunity to express to this master how deeply the spirit of his unique art moved me. What fantasy and, at the same time, what logical constructions could be discerned in Marc's creations - how consistent this development had been from his impressionist beginnings to the abstract compositions of his last years!”
Mark Dober on Franz Marc
“How do Marc's views about the war [World War 1.] impact on our response to his art? Our appreciation of the Utopian underpinnings to [Franz] Marc's art – whether idealist representations of animals or premonitions of war – is heightened. We are made more aware of how Marc's art is linked in mood and content to European avantgarde art at this time, just as it is embedded in the tradition of German Romanticism.”
About Franz Marc
Franz Marc (February 8, 1880 - March 4, 1916) was a German painter, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a co-founding member of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), in Munich, together with Kandinsky. He is famous for his colorful animal-paintings.