Radiant colour defines Munich art movement

Franz Marc’s Blue Horse I (pictured) from 1911 expresses his belief that all living things embody a single spirit.
Franz Marc’s Blue Horse I (pictured) from 1911 expresses his belief that all living things embody a single spirit. Photo: Bloomberg
by The Economist

“Munich was radiant," wrote Thomas Mann, a Nobel prize-winning novelist, in 1902. “Art swayed the destinies of the town." The German city, which rivalled Paris as a magnet for artists in the early 20th century, also swayed the destinies of the artists drawn there from as far away as Russia and America.

In 1911, the boldest of them formed the Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) group, led by a Russian, Vasily Kandinsky, then aged 45, and the 31-year-old Franz Marc – its only Munich native. Among the others were Paul Klee, Alexei Jawlensky, August Macke and Gabriele Münter.

Benin bronzes, children’s art and medieval embroideries were among the influences that shaped their vision, as did modernist music, Matisse and Picasso. The Blue Rider group was all about opening up boundaries. Though short-lived (it disbanded at the start of the First World War), the group would prove hugely influential in the decades that followed.



The first rooms have intense, romantic, figurative and folkloric works by Kandinsky and Münter, his pupil and lover. Her Jawlensky and Werefkin from 1908 is a portrait of another couple in the group, both from St Petersburg. Marianne von Werefkin wears a big blue hat with bright green, orange and pink flowers. The pair loll on a green hillside at Murnau south of Munich where Münter had bought a house. That first year in Murnau, each of the four found a unique vision and the means to express it. Expansive use of colour was crucial to them all. In Jawlensky’s Summer Evening in Murnau (1908), the Alps, which rise up dramatically beyond the green meadows, are painted in rich blue, wine red and tangerine.

Evolving friendships

The visitor also sees other evolving friendships and aesthetic kinships taking place. Marc became friendly with Macke, whose Zoological Garden from 1912, with its deer and exotic birds, reflects their closeness; Klee painted the Alpine view from the Marcs’ garden.

One large room at the Lenbachhaus focuses on Marc as he moves towards the full expression of his belief that all living things embody a single spirit. In Blue Horse I from 1911, a shy yet powerful young animal stands against rolling hills of violet, yellow and rose. The Tiger, painted the following year, is a fierce cat embedded in jagged slices of amethyst, emerald and ruby. When he painted The Birds in 1914, only some claws and beaks are visible among kaleidoscopic multicoloured shards. This was one of Marc’s last works.

Kandinsky said it was hearing Wagner’s Lohengrin that made him become an artist. The music was bigger and more profound than anything he had experienced before. The first Blue Rider show in 1911 included Kandinsky’s equivalent: richly coloured paintings that sing out and dance with lyrical, abstract forms. Improvisation Gorge from 1914 is a composition of contrasts, ­intimate and apocalyptic.

Sir Norman’s design is not the only ­aesthetic flaw here. The Blue Riders are interrupted by a room of works from a different period: paintings done in the 1920s by artists seeking a New Objectivity or Neue Sachlikeit. Yet there are more Blue Rider works, and the overall experience is joyful. Marc was painting magnificently before he was killed at the battle of Verdun in 1916. Kandinsky lived until 1944, but these ­pictures are his masterpieces. To see these artists at their height is reason enough to visit the Lenbachhaus.