Small Composition II

Franz Marc painted this small canvas in 1914, the year the First World War broke out that August. Its subtitle is House with Trees, though by now the house and the trees have almost dissolved into planes of colour, the recognisable world coming apart into pure form. Three years earlier Marc had helped found the Blue Rider group in Munich with the painter Kandinsky, and he was best known for his glowing blue horses and deer. In these last small compositions the animals are gone and the landscape is nearly abstract. Marc volunteered for the German army as soon as the war began. He was killed at Verdun in March 1916, at 36, among the letters and sketchbooks he had filled at the front.