Blue horse

"Little Blue Horse" is an oil on canvas painting that Franz Marc completed in 1912, during the period of German Expressionism. A young horse stands in the foreground with its legs in a balanced pose, a small stream runs beside it, and behind it rise a flowering plant and a mountain landscape. The most striking feature is the colour: the horse is blue, while the mountains and sky are divided among red, yellow, blue and orange tones. The palette does not aim to copy nature but to convey an inner vision. According to the recorded tradition, Marc painted it as a gift for Walterchen, the son of his friend and fellow painter August Macke, a link suggested by the inscription in the upper right corner. Decades later it entered public collections: in 1956 the museum director Rudolf Bornschein acquired it for the Saarbrücker Stadt- und Heimatmuseum, which merged with the Moderne Galerie in 1968. Today it is one of the best-known works in the Saarland Museum's collection.

Painter

Franz Marc

Date

1912

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Museum

Saarland Museum, Saarbrücken

Genre

animal art

Depicts

horse

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