Franz Marc Quotes

Despite his relatively short life, there are hundreds of direct quotations available from the life of Franz Marc

This was an artist who thought deeply about his work. There is also much literature attributed to his hand which tells us yet more about his views on art and the ideas behind his own expressionist style.

He gave a brighter and purer sound to colour than any of us; he gave it the clarity and brightness of his whole being.

Franz Marc, describing August Macke

Blue is the male principle, stern and spiritual. Yellow the female principle, gentle, cheerful and sensual. Red is matter, brutal and heavy and always the colour which must be fought and vanquished by the other two.

Is there a more mysterious idea than to imagine how nature is reflected in the eyes of animals?

What appears spectral today will be natural tomorrow.

Religions die slowly.

Art is nothing but the expression of our dream; the more we surrender to it the closer we get to the inner truth of things, our dream-life, the true life that scorns questions and does not see them.

Serious art has been the work of individual artists whose art has had nothing to do with style because they were not in the least connected with the style or the needs of the masses. Their work arose rather in defiance of their times.

We are staunch and true and in rather a champagne mood.

Like everything genuine, its inner life guarantees its truth. All works of art created by truthful minds without regard for the work's conventional exterior remain genuine for all times.

Today we are searching for things in nature that are hidden behind the veil of appearance... We look for and paint this inner, spiritual side of nature.

We are staunch and true and in rather a champagne mood.

Art has always been and is in its very essence the boldest departure from nature. It is the bridge into the spirit world.

I never, for instance, have the urge to paint animals 'the way I see them,' but rather the way they are... The way they themselves look at the world and feel their being

Blue is the male principle, stern and spiritual. Yellow the female principle, gentle, cheerful and sensual. Red is matter, brutal and heavy and always the colour which must be fought and vanquished by the other two.

Is there a more mysterious idea than to imagine how nature is reflected in the eyes of animals?

The great artists do not seek their forms in the midst of the past, but take the deepest soundings they can of the genuine, profoundest of their age.

Today we are searching for things in nature that are hidden behind the veil of appearance... We look for and paint this inner, spiritual side of nature.

Art is nothing but the expression of our dream; the more we surrender to it the closer we get to the inner truth of things, our dream-life, the true life that scorns questions and does not see them.

Like everything genuine, its inner life guarantees its truth. All works of art created by truthful minds without regard for the work's conventional exterior remain genuine for all times.

Art will liberate itself from the needs and desires of men. No longer will we paint a forest ora horseas we like oras theyappear to us, but as they really are.

Traditions are lovely things to create traditions, that is, not to live off them.

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, with new movements and with colours that reduce our old easel paintings to absurdity.

Serious art has been the work of individual artists whose art has had nothing to do with style because they were not in the least connected with the style or the needs of the masses. Their work arose rather in defiance of their times.

Whenever we have seen a crevice in the crust of convention, we have called attention to it, because we have hoped for a force underneath, which will someday come to light.

What appears spectral today will be natural tomorrow.