Fairy Animals 1913

Franz Marc’s "Fairy Animals," painted sometime in the early 20th century, uses oil on paper to explore a world of vibrant color and fractured form. Look at the way Marc builds up the image, creating a kind of stained-glass effect, where flat planes of color meet to define form, but also pull away from it. The paint is applied in thin, washy layers, allowing the paper's texture to peek through, which adds a sense of lightness and movement. The colours, reds, blues, yellows, are bold and pure, creating an emotional resonance, almost like music. Take the black horse’s head. It's not just an animal; it’s a series of dynamic, angular shapes. Notice how the brushstrokes follow the contours of the head, but also break away, creating a sense of energy. For me, this feels like Marc trying to capture the essence of the animal, its spirit, rather than just its appearance. Marc's interest in the emotional and spiritual qualities of color links him to other artists of the period like Kandinsky, who were trying to find new ways of representing the world through abstraction. Ultimately, art is about seeing things in new ways, embracing ambiguity, and finding beauty in the unexpected.