Two sheep 1913

Franz Marc made this watercolor painting, Two Sheep, at some unknown date, and what strikes me is the lovely, soft color palette. It feels like a dance between observation and abstraction, where shapes and forms are suggested rather than explicitly defined. It’s as if Marc is showing us how he *feels* the sheep rather than just what they look like. The colors are muted, earthy tones, blues, greens, browns, that evoke a sense of nature. I am really drawn to how the black outlines of the sheep almost seem to bleed into the paper. It looks like it might have been painted on rough paper, which gives the work a certain texture, and a feeling of warmth. The paint application is loose and gestural, so you can see the hand of the artist at work, which is always appealing to me. I especially like the small red dots scattered around the edge of one sheep that give the artwork a unique touch. Marc's work, like that of Kandinsky, embraces the power of color and form to convey emotions and ideas.