Franz Marc

Today in class we learned about the painter and print maker Franz Marc. He was born in Germany in 1880. As a young artist, he was influenced by Vincent Van Gogh, and that influence is clearly visible in his early work.

He was a part of the German Expressionist movement, along with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Edward Munch. (Munch made the iconic painting "The Scream.") Expressionists distorted reality in their paintings in order to show emotion. They used exaggerated forms and arbitrary color. Arbitrary color refers to the seemingly random, unnatural color choices.

German Expressionist Portraits- Various Artists -unifying theme of distortion and expression

 Franz Marc, along with Wassily Kandinsky and August Macke formed the Blue Rider group. The group got its name from an early painting of Kandinsky's where a man is seen riding a blue horse. This group believed in expressing their artistic ideas even if their style was different from everyone else. The symbol of the horseman stood for art "moving forward" to the modern era, and the color blue represented the human spirit.

 Marc

Franz Marc lost his life in World War One. An order was sent to remove him from the front lines and re-assign him to a safer position, since he German government didn't want to lose such a valuable painter - he had celebrity status, just about. Before the order could reach him, however, he was tragically killed in action.

Marc

Can you see the Van Gogh inspiration in this early painting by Marc?

Check out these others. What can you see is the same in all of these?

Marc

Check out this transcription, looking at one of Marc's paintings. I made this my sophomore year of high school.

I was in such a fluster today, since this was the first day of class, so I forgot to take pictures. I normally snap a few shots as the kids work. The class did really wonderful things today! I'm really proud of them. Here's a couple pictures of the work that was left behind to dry. Can you see the inspiration? The arbitrary use of color?

And tomorrow, we learn about Claude Monet!

September Class starts tonight!

Hello Everyone!

 Via Pinterest

I apologize for not posting about the last couple classes. Hopefully this month I can buckle down and post after each class session! The September class starts tonight and it will run through October 11th. I'm really looking forward to teaching about the set of artists I've picked out, and I'm looking forward to meeting some new students this evening! I saw several names on the list of Young Artists that I haven't met yet. :) I'll give you a brief overview of what to expect from this class.

  Via Pinterest

Each class session we go over a different artist. We talk about their life, their style, and why they're important to learn about. Once we've gotten familiar with the artist and their work, it's the student's turn! They make some form of art, any kind, that draws inspiration from that artist. For instance, we could be studying Picasso one day and one student may be drawing something cubist, while another student may be painting something in shades of blue, inspired by Picasso's "blue period." Another may even be making contour line drawings. I let the kids have free reign to go where their creative minds take them-- as long as they're using the inspiration we learned in class that day.

  Via Pinterest

I travel around the room and help the kids with individual problems they may be having, making suggestions and showing them techniques. I like to show art parodies to the kids. It keeps the class fun, and shows that there are lots of ways to take inspiration from art.

In this month's class, we'll be looking at:

Franz Marc

Claude Monet

The Ancient Etruscans

Kieth Haring

Gustav Klimpt

Frank Stella

and Frida Khalo

All images via Pinterest. copy-write to the artists