St. Julian the Hospitaler 1913

Franz Marc made this striking image of St. Julian, sometime in the early 1900s, using watercolour and gouache. The vibrant colours and simplified forms immediately grab your attention, don't they? It's like seeing the world through a kaleidoscope. Notice how the strokes of blue and red aren't just descriptive; they're expressive, almost vibrating with energy. This way of working reminds me of how colour can be like emotion. Take a look at the way Marc renders the horse, its muscles defined by planes of blue that bleed into white. The way he shows the horse has a certain innocence. This is typical of how the German Expressionists used colour and form to convey deeper feelings and ideas about nature and spirituality, right? It is hard to not think of Kandinsky’s earlier work. Ultimately, art is like one big conversation, each artist riffing off the ideas of those who came before.