Promenade

Before 1914 the promenade was a scheduled thing in German towns, a set hour when people put on their good clothes and walked where everyone else was walking. Macke had been circling that kind of crowd for two years, first the visitors at the zoo, then figures leaning on a bridge railing. Here the walkers fill a red path under heavy dark trees. Bowler hats, dark coats and pale dresses are laid down as flat blocks of colour, and most of the faces are barely drawn. One exception stands closest to us, cut off by the left edge of the canvas, a girl in a broad white hat painted from the waist up. Collections still list the picture under a longer title that names her, Promenade with a girl in white, half-length.