While associated with the Blue Rider group, Marc emphasized two major themes in his work. He believed that all humans desired to return to the instinctual, animalistic past- a time in which society was free from moral restriction. According to Marc, man disturbed the harmony that existed in nature. Though a part of nature, man possessed the quality of awareness- of self, of the past and future, and of the certainty of death- that animals lacked. It was this awareness that conflicted with the unity of the world.

Thus it was regression toward primitive beginnings that would lead to the second theme, the apocalypse. The removal of the individual and breakdown of traditions would cleanse the universe. Through an apocalypse, Marc and the other German Expressionists wished to unite all the components of the universe through a destruction and elimination of institutions and traditions. Thus, man would be uninhibited to reveal their primitive, instinctive behavior. In Fate of Animals (1913), Marc depicts an agitated scene inspired by the Biblical verse in Apocalypse: “The trees showed their rings and the animals their veins.

Fate of Animals (1913)