Leute am blauen See

Macke painted this in 1913, during a long stay by Lake Thun in Switzerland, a calm and astonishingly productive stretch that turned out to be the last settled year of his life. The figures stroll by bright water in simple blocks of warm and cool colour, everything unhurried, the influence of the French painters he admired soaking through it. He was 26 then. The following August the war began, and Macke was called up almost at once. He was killed at the front in Champagne, in northern France, in late September 1914, only a few weeks into the fighting and just turned 27.