In this woodcut, four horses nestle together to form a harmonious composition. The shape of each animal fits into the other, like pieces in a puzzle. A member of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), Franz Marc made many images of animals as symbols of spiritual renewal, rebirth, and inner peace. The cool green and blue hues express the artist’s vision of a spiritual connection to nature: “I am trying to heighten my feeling for the organic rhythm in all things, trying to establish a pantheistic contact with the tremor and flow of blood in nature, in animals, in the air—trying to make it all into a picture….”

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Medium Woodcut
Dimensions composition: 6 5/8 x 9 1/16" (16.8 x 23 cm); sheet: 11 1/4 x 15 3/4" (28.6 x 40 cm)
Publisher Verlag Der Sturm, Berlin
Printer Franz Marc
Edition approx. 3 impressions, printed in black; an unknown number of impressions (approx. 10-15), printed in color [this ex.]; 10 signed and numbered, printed in color, published by Verlag Der Sturm, Berlin; an unknown number, printed in black, in the periodical Der Sturm, vol. 3, no. 146/147 (February 1913); plus a posthumous edition of 30 issued by Otto Stangl, Munich, and printed by Gerhard Köhler, Baden-Baden, in 1984
Credit Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
Object number 416.1940
Department Drawings and Prints

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