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Lot Essay
Aktbild auf Zinnober (Nudes on Vermillion) is one of Franz Marc's finest early paintings. According to Marc, it was the first painting of his to succeed in his aim of creating an art in which the independent and autonomous elements of spatial organisation, rhythm and colour theory were successfully co-ordinated into a harmonised and expressive whole. Painted in Sindelsdorf during the last months of 1910, the painting, with its bold, almost monochrome background of brilliant vermilion, represents the culmination of Marc's rapid artistic development in this dramatic year.
In January 1910 Marc had met August Macke for the first time and through their immediate friendship had also acquired the patronage of Berlin manufacturer Bernhard Koehler. The two hundred Marks a month that Koehler subsequently sent Marc allowed the artist to concentrate on his work as never before and lent him a newfound confidence and boldness with new ideas that soon became reflected in his painting. After viewing the latest work of the second exhibition of the Neuekünstlervereinigung München, (New Artist's Association of Munich or NKVM) held in September 1910 and in the face of much public condemnation of the exhibition, Marc wrote an enthusiastic letter of support for the group that ultimately, served as his introduction to the artists Alexej Jawlensky and Wassily Kandinsky. Concentrating on the boldness of these artists in pursuing a 'direction that attempted to seek out a 'spiritual' element of feeling in the work, he also gave an accurate account of his own hopes and aims at this time. 'What seems so promising in the new work being done by the Neuekünstervereinigung (New Artists Association)', Marc wrote, was 'the utterly spiritualized and dematerialized inwardness of feeling which our fathers...never even attempted to explore in a 'picture''. This 'bold attempt' to 'spiritualize' the subject was 'necessary' he said, but 'in addition to their supremely spiritualized tenor, (the NKVM'S) pictures contain outstanding examples of spatial organisation, rhythm and colour theory...Their logical distribution of the plane, the mysterious lines of the one and the colour harmony of the other seek to create spiritual moods which have little to do with the subject portrayed but...prepare the ground for a new, highly spiritualized aesthetic' (Franz Marc, letter on the Neuekünstelervereingung exhibition, September 1910, cited in K. Lankheit (ed.), Franz Marc, Schriften, Cologne, 1978, p. 126).
Inspired by their example, by the winter of 1910 Marc was feeling accomplished enough with the recent development of his art to seek ever more fervently to intensify the 'spiritualizing' of a subject through close attention to colour. On 8 December he wrote to Maria Franck, 'I am painting eagerly and am really progressing. Gradually something is happening. I am very curious as to what the Neue Vereinigung will say about it, especially Jawlensky and you of course. You remember the beginnings of the long snow picture and my many attempts this autumn (?). Your 'Nude on Vermillion' must be considered as the first real test of my ideas. I really have the feeling that it holds up. Everything has been structured on an organic basis, but not the colour. Ms von Werefkin told Helmuth (Macke) recently with regards to Nauen's work that the Germans nearly all commit the mistake of understanding light as colour, whereas colour is something very different and has absolutely nothing to do with light, or illumination. This phrase keeps going around in my head. It is very profound and, I believe, hits the nail right on the head' (G. Meissner (ed.), Franz Marc: Briefe, Schriften und Aufzeichnungen, Weimar, 1980, p. 34).
Aktbild auf Zinnober is the final version of a painting that Marc had begun as an oil sketch in Sindelsdorf in 1909 and was later reworked after seeing the second NKVM exhibition in September 1910. Now in the University of Iowa Museum of Art, this painting (Aktbild auf Zinnober: Skizze) served as a preparatory study for the present work which Marc worked on in the winter of 1910 and had evidently only just completed in December 1910 when he wrote to Maria Franck. As his letter to his companion and future wife attests, she was the model for this final version. Marc painted the picture while Maria was living away from him in Berlin. The three month separation was at her parents' insistence, because Marc could not obtain the necessary dispensation from his first wife to remarry Maria. In his letter to her Marc refers to the painting 'your Nude on Vermilion', yet this picture is no portrait. In its subject matter it is a fusion of the badende tradition - that ancient classical tradition of depicting the female nude in the landscape that had been so forcefully revived by Cézanne and Matisse, and more recently by the artists of Die Brücke, - with the heightened tones of Marc's newly emerging colour symbolism.
In April 1910 Marc had travelled to Berlin where he had seen the spring exhibition of the Neue Sezession which that year included many works by the 'Fauves'. In August in Munich Marc had also visited a major exhibition of Gauguin's work held at the Thannhauser Gallery. The influence of these two exhibitions along with his knowledge of Cézanne's work and the inspiration towards developing a more spiritually intense art that his own desires and the example of the NKVM painters provoked in him, led to the brilliant array of pure colour orchestrated in Aktbild auf Zinnober. Marc was to write shortly afterwards that the aim of his art was to uncover and express the hidden symbiosis between all things in nature, what he described as the 'magic sympathetic bond' that exists between earth and object. 'I am seeking', he wrote, 'a feeling for the organic rhythm in all things, a pantheistic empathy into the shaking and flowing of the blood in nature, in trees, in animals, in the air' (Franz Marc cited in K. Lankheit (ed.), Franz Marc, Schriften, Cologne, 1978, p. 98).
Taking as its subject the harmonic unity of the human form in Nature, Aktbild auf Zinnober is one of the first of Marc's paintings to begin to express such sentiments, being a harmonious painterly synthesis of female form, natural background and a field of intense abstract colour. It is, as he was to write shortly afterwards in February 1911, a synthesis of 'form and expression'. 'There are no 'objects' and no 'colours' in art,' Marc observed, 'only expression...That in the final analysis, is what really counts. I already knew that, but in my work I was always distracted by other things such as 'probabilities', the melodious sound of the colours, so-called harmony etc. But we should seek nothing but expression in pictures. The picture is a cosmos that has totally different laws to those in Nature. Nature is lawless because it is an eternal chain of coming and going (Neben und Nacheinander)...I write as if I already know something about these...laws which I have dreamt about! But I am searching with the entire longing of my soul and with all my strength after them and I have a slight idea that they are already in my paintings' (Franz Marc, letter to Maria Franck, 22 February 1911, cited in G. Meissner (ed.), op. cit., p. 53).
In January 1910 Marc had met August Macke for the first time and through their immediate friendship had also acquired the patronage of Berlin manufacturer Bernhard Koehler. The two hundred Marks a month that Koehler subsequently sent Marc allowed the artist to concentrate on his work as never before and lent him a newfound confidence and boldness with new ideas that soon became reflected in his painting. After viewing the latest work of the second exhibition of the Neuekünstlervereinigung München, (New Artist's Association of Munich or NKVM) held in September 1910 and in the face of much public condemnation of the exhibition, Marc wrote an enthusiastic letter of support for the group that ultimately, served as his introduction to the artists Alexej Jawlensky and Wassily Kandinsky. Concentrating on the boldness of these artists in pursuing a 'direction that attempted to seek out a 'spiritual' element of feeling in the work, he also gave an accurate account of his own hopes and aims at this time. 'What seems so promising in the new work being done by the Neuekünstervereinigung (New Artists Association)', Marc wrote, was 'the utterly spiritualized and dematerialized inwardness of feeling which our fathers...never even attempted to explore in a 'picture''. This 'bold attempt' to 'spiritualize' the subject was 'necessary' he said, but 'in addition to their supremely spiritualized tenor, (the NKVM'S) pictures contain outstanding examples of spatial organisation, rhythm and colour theory...Their logical distribution of the plane, the mysterious lines of the one and the colour harmony of the other seek to create spiritual moods which have little to do with the subject portrayed but...prepare the ground for a new, highly spiritualized aesthetic' (Franz Marc, letter on the Neuekünstelervereingung exhibition, September 1910, cited in K. Lankheit (ed.), Franz Marc, Schriften, Cologne, 1978, p. 126).
Inspired by their example, by the winter of 1910 Marc was feeling accomplished enough with the recent development of his art to seek ever more fervently to intensify the 'spiritualizing' of a subject through close attention to colour. On 8 December he wrote to Maria Franck, 'I am painting eagerly and am really progressing. Gradually something is happening. I am very curious as to what the Neue Vereinigung will say about it, especially Jawlensky and you of course. You remember the beginnings of the long snow picture and my many attempts this autumn (?). Your 'Nude on Vermillion' must be considered as the first real test of my ideas. I really have the feeling that it holds up. Everything has been structured on an organic basis, but not the colour. Ms von Werefkin told Helmuth (Macke) recently with regards to Nauen's work that the Germans nearly all commit the mistake of understanding light as colour, whereas colour is something very different and has absolutely nothing to do with light, or illumination. This phrase keeps going around in my head. It is very profound and, I believe, hits the nail right on the head' (G. Meissner (ed.), Franz Marc: Briefe, Schriften und Aufzeichnungen, Weimar, 1980, p. 34).
Aktbild auf Zinnober is the final version of a painting that Marc had begun as an oil sketch in Sindelsdorf in 1909 and was later reworked after seeing the second NKVM exhibition in September 1910. Now in the University of Iowa Museum of Art, this painting (Aktbild auf Zinnober: Skizze) served as a preparatory study for the present work which Marc worked on in the winter of 1910 and had evidently only just completed in December 1910 when he wrote to Maria Franck. As his letter to his companion and future wife attests, she was the model for this final version. Marc painted the picture while Maria was living away from him in Berlin. The three month separation was at her parents' insistence, because Marc could not obtain the necessary dispensation from his first wife to remarry Maria. In his letter to her Marc refers to the painting 'your Nude on Vermilion', yet this picture is no portrait. In its subject matter it is a fusion of the badende tradition - that ancient classical tradition of depicting the female nude in the landscape that had been so forcefully revived by Cézanne and Matisse, and more recently by the artists of Die Brücke, - with the heightened tones of Marc's newly emerging colour symbolism.
In April 1910 Marc had travelled to Berlin where he had seen the spring exhibition of the Neue Sezession which that year included many works by the 'Fauves'. In August in Munich Marc had also visited a major exhibition of Gauguin's work held at the Thannhauser Gallery. The influence of these two exhibitions along with his knowledge of Cézanne's work and the inspiration towards developing a more spiritually intense art that his own desires and the example of the NKVM painters provoked in him, led to the brilliant array of pure colour orchestrated in Aktbild auf Zinnober. Marc was to write shortly afterwards that the aim of his art was to uncover and express the hidden symbiosis between all things in nature, what he described as the 'magic sympathetic bond' that exists between earth and object. 'I am seeking', he wrote, 'a feeling for the organic rhythm in all things, a pantheistic empathy into the shaking and flowing of the blood in nature, in trees, in animals, in the air' (Franz Marc cited in K. Lankheit (ed.), Franz Marc, Schriften, Cologne, 1978, p. 98).
Taking as its subject the harmonic unity of the human form in Nature, Aktbild auf Zinnober is one of the first of Marc's paintings to begin to express such sentiments, being a harmonious painterly synthesis of female form, natural background and a field of intense abstract colour. It is, as he was to write shortly afterwards in February 1911, a synthesis of 'form and expression'. 'There are no 'objects' and no 'colours' in art,' Marc observed, 'only expression...That in the final analysis, is what really counts. I already knew that, but in my work I was always distracted by other things such as 'probabilities', the melodious sound of the colours, so-called harmony etc. But we should seek nothing but expression in pictures. The picture is a cosmos that has totally different laws to those in Nature. Nature is lawless because it is an eternal chain of coming and going (Neben und Nacheinander)...I write as if I already know something about these...laws which I have dreamt about! But I am searching with the entire longing of my soul and with all my strength after them and I have a slight idea that they are already in my paintings' (Franz Marc, letter to Maria Franck, 22 February 1911, cited in G. Meissner (ed.), op. cit., p. 53).