A Dog 1912

Franz Marc made this painting, A Dog, with oil on canvas, at an unknown date. Look at how the forms of the animals are built up using blocks of colour, almost like facets of a gem. You can see the influence of Cubism, but with this added sense of rhythm and movement. Marc was interested in the spiritual connection between humans and animals. He wanted to represent the world from an animal's perspective, not through realism, but through feeling. The colours are rich and earthy, and the paint has a kind of matte, dry quality. See the way he’s described the musculature of the dog? Almost like a series of planes that suggest the power and the life force in the body. I'm thinking of someone like Marsden Hartley, who was also exploring these kinds of spiritual ideas in his paintings around the same time, with that same feeling for the physical presence of paint.