Deer in the reeds

In 1909 Franz Marc left Munich for Sindelsdorf, a village in the foothills south of the city, and spent his days out watching animals rather than drawing from models. He was 29. The deer here are still the colour that deer are. The blue horses and red roe deer that made his name come two or three years later, after he had met the painters Macke and Kandinsky and worked out a private system in which each colour carried a meaning. He wrote not long after this about wanting to picture the world the way an animal sees it rather than the way a person looking at one does. Munich bought the painting in 1929, at the auction of a private collection in the city, 13 years after Marc was killed at Verdun.