Small Composition II 1914

This dynamic painting, "Small Composition II," was crafted by Franz Marc using oil on canvas. Look at those greens, reds, and yellows churning in the foreground! It’s like watching colors morph and collide. I can imagine Marc, brush in hand, stepping back, squinting, adding another layer, maybe scraping some off. Each stroke feels like a question mark. The way those flat shapes bump up against each other reminds me a little of the way Cezanne used colour planes to build up an image of an object or a landscape. But here, the forms seem to be dissolving into pure energy, an almost spiritual experience of the natural world. I wonder if he was thinking about the way Kandinsky was also painting abstractions at this moment. It’s like they were all in this crazy, cool conversation about what painting could be, pushing each other to the edge of representation. Marc's painting invites us to let go of our expectations and let the colors and shapes speak for themselves.