Iconography and Color Theory

Red Horses (1911)

Franz Marc used animals in his art because they interacted with nature in a harmonious way. Animals were innocent and lacked man’s awareness of life’s certainties.

Red Horses (1911) demonstrates the close relation between animals and nature through recurring curves evident in both the animals' torsos and the hills in the background. By reverting to animal subjects, yet bestowing upon them human qualities, Marc attempted to resolve man’s displacement in nature. The horses represented the instinctual attributes that Marc himself wished to possess.

For Marc, color symbolism served to aid man in his path to inner realization; colors were expressive rather than descriptive. The artist was interested in revealing the hidden truths of the universe through non-naturalistic use of color. Spirituality, intellect, peace, and maleness were associated with the color blue, while femininity and sensuality corresponded with yellow and terrestrial materiality with red. Green invokes a disturbance to the work. Thus, the red horses, which were closely associated with the earth, were in a state of constant agitation due to the existence of greens in the background.

In Yellow Cow (1911), the artist used specific colors and icons to represent his joyous marital union to Maria Franck (see Biography for more information). The yellow cow symbolizes Marc’s new wife and the triangular, blue mountains in the background denote the aspirations of Marc and the Blue Rider group.

Yellow Cow (1911)