Cats, Red and White

The painting of cats that we present today shows Franz Marc’s visionary approach to depicting animals in their natural environment, a theme that preoccupied him in the years leading up to World War I. This idyllic scene of two cats nestled in a rolling, verdant landscape reflects Marc’s ability to capture what he described as their "intensified expression of peculiar energy." 

By 1912, Marc was deeply engaged with Munich’s avant-garde art scene, particularly through his collaboration with Wassily Kandinsky. Together, they developed the Blaue Reiter Almanac, a publication aimed at uniting diverse artistic styles under a shared spiritual pursuit. For Marc, this spiritual quest was best explored through animals, which he saw as embodying a purer, more instinctive connection to nature. "What can be more mysterious to the artist than the idea of how nature is mirrored in the eyes of an animal?" he once wrote, emphasizing his desire to perceive the world from their perspective.  

Between 1911 and 1914, Marc focused almost exclusively on animals, reducing their forms to expressive silhouettes and using color symbolically. The bodies of cats merge into one fluid composition. Beneath them, soft indigo and yellow hues subtly reference Marc’s color theory, in which "blue is the male principle, stern and spiritual," while "yellow is the female principle, gentle, cheerful, and sensual."

P.S. If you are a cat lover, you're going to love our Cats in Art QUIZ! Can you get all the answers correct? 

P.P.S. Franz Marc is famous for his depictions of animals. Do you know which animal he loved to portray the most? Here's the answer!