A Bison in Winter 1913

Franz Marc made "A Bison in Winter" with oil paint, and you can really see him thinking through the process right on the canvas. Look at how the paint is laid down, almost like tiles, to create these animals and landscapes that feel solid yet kind of dreamy. It's like he's building the world from scratch, color by color. There is texture in the paint application itself. Especially the dark blue and green mountain in the back, notice how the brushstrokes give it weight and volume, making it almost touchable, like you could reach out and feel the coldness of the mountain air. That physicality is everything in painting, isn't it? It makes me think of Kandinsky, who was doing similar things at the time, but Marc brings a real tenderness to it all. It's like he’s not just painting what he sees, but what he feels.