170:. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "the powerfully simplified and rounded outlines of the horses are echoed in the rhythms of the landscape background, uniting both animals and setting into a vigorous and harmonious organic whole." The curved lines Marc used to depict the subject are to emphasize "a sense of harmony, peace, and balance" in a spiritually-pure animal world; by viewing the work, human beings are allowed to join this harmony. Marc gave an emotional or psychological meaning or purpose to the colors he used in his work: blue was used for masculinity and spirituality, yellow represented feminine joy, and red encased the sound of violence and of base matter. Marc used blue throughout his career to represent spirituality; his use of vivid color is thought to have been an attempt to eschew the material world to evoke a spiritual or transcendental essence. This
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associative not only in the sense that they express human emotion (joy or sadness, etc.) but also in that they signify emotive aspects of our external environment-yellow is earthy, blue is heavenly; yellow is brash and importunate, and upsets people, blue is pure and infinite, suggestive of infinite peace."
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Compare this to Read, Herbert. A Concise
History of Modern Painting. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974 ed.) at 193, describing Marc's associate and fellow Blue Reiter member Kandinsky's work of this time as "Lines fluctuate and represent not only movement, but purpose and growth. Colours are
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Wankheit, Klaus and
Steffen, Uwe. Briefe aus dem Feld. (Munich: Piper, 1986), 64; Partsch, Susanna. Franz Marc 1880-1916. (Cologne: Taschen, 1991), 38-39; Piper, Reinhard "Franz Marc: On the animal in art" in Das Tier in der Kunst. (Munich: Piper, 1922) included in Partsch,
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This is one of Marc's earliest major works depicting animals and is one of the most important of his series of portraits of horses. It is often thought that Marc considered animals to be more pure and more beautiful than humans and, therefore, his paintings represent a
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Swiss painter Jean Bloé Niestlé (1884–1942) urged Marc to "capture the essence of the animal." According to art historian Gabi La Cava, for Marc, "the feeling that is evoked by the subject matter is most important"—more so than zoological accuracy.
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Macke, Wolfgang (ed.) Briefwechsel: August Macke/Franz Marc. (Cologne: DuMont-Schauberg, 1964), 25-28; Partsch, Susanna. Franz Marc 1880-1916. (Cologne:
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This work, which represents three vividly coloured blue horses looking down in front of a landscape of rolling red hills, is characterized by its bright
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through The T. B. Walker
Foundation and its Gilbert M. Walker Memorial Fund. This was the first major modernist work to enter the collection.
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Walker Art Center, Gift of the T.B. Walker
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The painting was the inspiration behind the title of a bestselling volume of poetry,
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105.7 cm × 181.2 cm (41.6 in × 71.3 in)
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measures 41.625 inches by 71.3125 inches (unframed) and is unsigned.
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282:(The Tower of Blue Horses) (1913), missing since 1945.
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264:(Two Cats, Blue and Yellow) 1911
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222:(2014), by the American poet
299:List of works by Franz Marc
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288:(The Little Yellow Horses)
279:Der Turm der Blauen Pferde
262:Zwei Katzen, Blau und Gelb
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573:Two Women on the Hillside
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258:(The Small Blue Horses)
729:Paintings in Minnesota
208:Minneapolis, Minnesota
89:Minneapolis, Minnesota
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202:was purchased by the
117:The Large Blue Horses
498:at Wikimedia Commons
468:21 June 2012 at the
304:German Expressionism
156:German Expressionism
19:For other uses, see
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224:Mary Oliver
220:Blue Horses
200:Blue Horses
184:pantheistic
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31:Blue Horses
708:Categories
685:Maria Marc
613:Yellow Cow
565:Indersdorf
533:Franz Marc
315:References
240:Yellow Cow
214:In culture
194:Provenance
144:expatriate
127:Background
121:Franz Marc
73:Dimensions
49:Franz Marc
21:Blue Horse
645:The Foxes
549:Paintings
236:Gelbe Kuh
198:In 1942,
466:Archived
293:See also
252:) (1911)
242:) (1911)
162:Analysis
81:Location
672:Related
656:Museums
448:22 June
418:op.cit.
393:22 June
370:Taschen
354:22 June
141:Russian
648:(1913)
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176:canvas
137:German
63:Medium
45:Artist
95:Owner
450:2012
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139:and
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55:Year
605:Fox
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