Caliban 1914

Franz Marc made this watercolor and gouache painting, Caliban, in Germany at a time when the country’s artists were deeply engaged in rethinking the purpose of art. Caliban, the brutish character from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” has been interpreted in many ways, often as a figure of the oppressed and dispossessed. Here, Marc uses sharp, angular forms and jarring colors to depict Caliban as a raw, almost violent figure, struggling against some unseen force. This aesthetic of fragmentation and dissonance mirrored the broader anxieties of early 20th-century European society, marked by rapid industrialization and social upheaval. Marc was part of Der Blaue Reiter, a group that sought to express spiritual truths through abstraction. They turned away from traditional academic styles and toward a more subjective and emotionally charged mode of expression. By looking at Marc’s letters and the group’s manifestos, we can further understand how Caliban reflects their radical rethinking of art’s role in a changing world.