The Tower of Blue Horses was a large work, 200 by 130 centimetres (6 ft 7 in × 4 ft 3 in). It has been called one of his best works, but went missing in 1945. The Tower of Blue Horses (German: Der Turm der blauen Pferde) is a 1913 Expressionist oil painting by the German artist Franz Marc. Still, no official record of The Tower of Blue Horses exists after 1945. Throughout the years, there were several reported sightings and speculations regarding the painting’s whereabouts. Various accounts claimed that the painting was almost destroyed and then saved on multiple occasions however, after 1945, it vanished without a trace. Goering used his position to select his favorite pieces from the confiscated and looted artworks for his private collection, which also contained two other works by Marc. After a protest by the association of German officers, the painting was removed from the Berlin opening.įor a while, the artwork was owned by Herman Goering, the commander of the German Luftwaffe, and one of the most influential members of the Nazi Party. This decision caused considerable controversy since Marc was killed while serving Germany during World War I. The painting was included in the Degenerate Art exhibition that opened in July 1937 in Munich. In 1937, the German Nazi Party launched its campaign against modern art and began confiscating artworks that they considered ‘degenerate’ from museums and galleries. After World War I, the painting was acquired for the contemporary section of the National Gallery in Berlin. The exhibition was modeled after the French Salon d’Automne (Autumn Salon) and was the largest and most significant exhibition held in Germany before World War I. In the fall of 1913, the painting was exhibited in the First German Autumn Salon in Berlin. If so, the tower of horses would be a rhythmical repetition of the successive movement of a single horse. At the same time, given Marc’s interest in Futurist art, this could be an interpretation of how Futurist painters, like Giacomo Balla, represented a movement in paintings like Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912). The four horses possibly signify the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which relate to the atmosphere and tension before World War I. Like the title suggests, the composition can be interpreted as a cluster of horses. Besides, orange and blue are complementary colors, and in Marc’s color theory, this combination was harmonious and celebratory. The blue and red in the bottom created a high intensity, which needed to be broken up with the softness of the yellow. The blue symbolized the male principle, severe and spiritual, and the yellow marked the female principle, gentle, cheerful, and sensual. Like in other artworks, Marc applied his theory of color symbolism to the painting. In essence, the bottom of the painting is a deeply saturated blue that gradually transitions to light yellow and orange tones in the rainbow on the top. This vertical motion is mainly established through color. The artist created a tight composition, in which all of the elements move upward. The artist sent this ink and gouache sketch on a postcard to the German Jewish poet Else Lasker-Schüler, who was one of the few women affiliated with the Expressionist movement. Marc’s preparatory work is visible in The Tower of Blue Horses (1912). The large canvas (200x130cm) is representative of the height of Marc’s artistic achievement. The Tower of Blue Horses is equally known for its aesthetic and artistic significance, and for its fascinating history.
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