Horse in a landscape 1910

Franz Marc made ‘Horse in a Landscape’ with oil on canvas sometime before 1916, and what strikes me is how the colours are so alive, almost vibrating against each other, like they're lit from within. I think there’s something really gorgeous about how Marc uses colour to create a feeling. Take that field of yellow, it's not just yellow, it's mixed with strokes of orange and little bits of green, giving it this pulsating, sunny quality. And the horse! That blue neck, set against the red-brown of its body. It's not naturalistic, but it sure is expressive. I love how the paint is applied in these broad, confident strokes. You can almost feel his hand moving across the canvas. Marc was trying to get at something beyond the surface of things, to capture the inner essence of the animal and its connection to the landscape. I'm reminded of Kandinsky, another artist who wasn't afraid to let colour sing. Both wanted their paintings to be like music, evoking emotions and ideas beyond what words could say.