Cervo nel bosco I

Franz Marc painted this in 1913, and within three years he was dead at Verdun, one of the millions killed in the First World War. He had built his art almost entirely around animals, which he thought were purer and more whole than the humans wrecking the world around them. Here the deer are folded so far into the forest's splintered reds, blues and yellows that you have to hunt for them among the shards. Marc believed colours carried feeling and meaning, a conviction he shared with his friend Kandinsky in the Blue Rider circle. High over the animals, if you look for it, a single bird crosses the top of the picture.