Franz Marc, a German painter in the early 20th century, focused on depicting animals, especially horses, as a reflection of the spiritual connection between nature and humanity. He developed a unique color theory associating specific colors with emotions and qualities, such as blue with masculinity and spirituality, and yellow with femininity and joy. Marc's use of non-naturalistic colors aimed to transcend the material world and express deeper spiritual truths.

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“ During the early years of the 20th century,
German painter Franz Marc devoted much of his
artistic energy to creating images of horses and
other animals. The allure of animals was not,
for Marc, simply a formal or zoological interest,
but stemmed from a deep fascination with the
dynamic connection between animals, humans,
and the natural world they shared. Longing to
understand the spirit driving his own being,
Marc looked to the horse in nature to perceive
what he could not recognize in the human
world. Through radical compositions and bold
experiments with color, he strove to express
the primary energy of the animals
( Portrait by Auguste Macke)

3. Marc often depicted animals in non-naturalistic colours.
He developed his own colour theory and symbolism,
which equated the three primary colours with qualities
and emotions. In its simplest terms, Marc associated blue
with masculinity, and red and yellow with femininity since
they are more earthy colours, but he also associated
yellow with joy and happiness. Blue was viewed by Marc
throughout his career to be the most deeply spiritual of
the three colours. His decision to apply non-representational
colours to animals could perhaps have
been an attempt at stepping away from the material
world and identifying the need to use non-worldly
colours in order to portray the spiritual. In a letter to
Macke dating from 1910, Marc states that yellow is
associated with femininity and happiness, while red is
associated with "matter" and is considered by him in

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Audio: Mozart, Violin Sonata 8