Friday, February 9, 2018

Franz Marc (1911). The Large Blue Horses [oil on canvas]. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

The canvas projects an impression of undulating motion more than any other single idea. Their development and definitions seem to be generated from instinctual rather than deliberate queues. Formally, compositional unification is effortless, but the sense of energy Mark has generated makes this a conceptual work that is something more than what is seen. Communicating an impression of the sense of motion unique to wild horses is his purpose, and he is successful. 
This is a work of repetition; to offer a note of perceptual reality, Marc develops the creatures with minimal recognizability and organizes the fore- and backgrounds through stark differences in value, color temperature, and a complementary color strategy. Chroma and global detail tend to flatten the composition. Value and positive/negative space are locked together. By compressing the field of view, enlarging the forms of the horses and relying on nearly chromatic color, their movement is intensified. 

In breaking down formal contrasts and equivalencies, the combination most responsible for the galloping sense of rhythm winding its way across the canvas is a unique definition of edge that builds the steady curved edges. Asymmetry results from the horizontal dominance of edges and motion pushing an otherwise approximately symmetrical formal composition to the left. Marc uses a life-like, global texture, chroma, somewhat severe embellishment and faunal shape tone to harmonize and bind the composition. 

Marc was from Munich but identified with the Der Blaue Reiter movement which carried a sense of spirituality and the belief that, based on religious reasons, Moscow would soon become the capital of the World. Because the focus of this masterpiece is an idea, the composition is evenly developed. Subjectivity is so pervasive that it verges on objective abstraction. Marc effectively suggests the harmony in which these creatures live with their surroundings in how they and nature are formally treated; only jarring contrasts in hue separate them. 


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