The Little Blue Horses 1911

Franz Marc painted The Little Blue Horses sometime around 1911 in, well, paint! It’s like he's inviting us to see the world through a different lens, a world where horses can be blue and the landscape sings with vibrant color. The surface has a kind of velvety texture, and Marc uses these really visible brushstrokes of blue – thick in places, thin in others – to shape the bodies of the horses. It feels like you can almost touch them, feel the energy of the paint. There's this great swoop of black that defines the neck of the horse on the right, it's such a confident mark and it anchors the whole composition. The redness in the background sings, just like the blues in the horses. You know, looking at this, I can't help but think of Matisse. Both artists shared that love of pure color, that joy in bending reality to create something new. Marc might have also been looking at Kandinsky's work – the simplification of form, the interest in spirituality. Ultimately, it is Marc’s unique visual language.