Lot Essay
Even more than the previous study by Marc (lot 179), Abstraktes Aquarell II, from the artist's Skizzenbuch XXX, demonstrates the influence of Delaunay in its concentric circular bands and disque-like structures, centered here upon an abstract bird form. As Marc moved more deeply into non-objective painting in early 1914, the angular, splintered shapes derived from Cubism and Futurism gave way to increasingly curvilinear forms. In his last paintings and drawings, created after the outbreak of World War I, Marc sought to create an entirely organic, non-referential visual reality that expressed spirit, dynamism and flux, which stemmed from an intense romantic idealism and an optimistically transcendent belief in the breakthrough to a new world. At the same time, however, seen in the context of a global cataclysm, they possess a sinister quality in which monumental, impersonal forces irrevocably alter the human and natural landscape, purging it of subject and figurative form, which had been an essential characteristic of European art for centuries.
As with August Macke, one can only speculate how Marc would have further evolved; he met his death on the front lines near Verdun on March 4, 1916, at age thirty-six.
As with August Macke, one can only speculate how Marc would have further evolved; he met his death on the front lines near Verdun on March 4, 1916, at age thirty-six.