Colorful Flowers (Abstract Forms) 1914

Franz Marc made this little painting on paper, sometime before 1916, with watercolor and gouache. Imagine him, bent over this small surface, trying to will his way into the secret life of colour. The palette here is so interesting, the bright yellows, oranges, reds and greens are offset with cooler blues and blacks. Look at the way he's built up the layers, those angular mountain peaks pushing against the softer curves of the flowers, the colour seeping into the paper. It’s like he’s trying to find the architecture of feeling itself. You can see the influence of other artists like Kandinsky and the German Expressionists, but Marc is clearly doing his own thing. There's a conversation happening, across time, between artists trying to capture something elusive, something beyond the surface of things.