Here are three amazing German artists everyone should know. Franz Marc is a founder of German expressionism. Käthe Kollwitz depicts war and the lives of the poor. Kaspar David Friedrich is the best known painter of 19th century German Romanticism.
1. Franz Marc (1880 - 1916)
Die großen blauen Pferde, The Large Blue Horses (1911)
This painting is one of Franz Marc's most famous works. His style uses strong colors, shapes, qualities of line and organic flow to achieve vibrant harmony in his work. Animals such as deer and horses are often his subject matter. Later his style becomes more angular.
One of the founders of German Expression, Franz Marc authors Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider), a progressive arts journal in Munich, with fellow artists Wassily Kandinsky, Marianne von Werefkin, Paul Klee and August Macke.
A group of artists and art lovers form around Der Blaue Reiter and the bold dynamics of Expressionism. The death of this stellar artist is truly a tragedy.
He's drafted into the First World War. Later, the Kaiser decides to recall all German artists from active duty. A message is already on its way to him when he steps on a mine at Verdun, 1916. The messenger arrives only to hear the now-classic words, "Franz Marc is dead."
2. Käthe Kollwitz (1867 - 1945)
Working Woman with Earring, 1910
Käthe Kollwitz creates drawings, prints and etchings and sculptures showing the struggles of the working class in poverty, hunger and war. A doctor's wife, she sees first-hand the pain of grief, sickness and loss.
Her son Peter is killed in the First World War and some of her work reflects a mother's anguish. Other works bespeak poignant details of tenderness. Although Kollwitz doesn't formally associate herself with any artistic style, she's often included as an Expressionist.
After studying painting for two years in Munich, Käthe moves on to drawing, printmaking and sculpture. Almost none of her early paintings survive but they show rare genius. Art is always her first love.
When she marries, she tells her husband she's an artist first and a wife second. A hard worker, she never shirks from helping in his practice as a doctor among the less fortunate.
3. Kaspar David Friedrich (1744 - 1840)
Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon (c. 1824)
Kaspar (Caspar) David Friedrich is Germany's most influential Romantic painter. Romanticism infuses painting, literature and music with themes of nature, paganism, mysticism and emphasis on the individual and self-realization. The Romantic period arises in reaction to early industrial revolution.
Fond of allegory and Gothic elements, Friedrich uses both liberally in his artwork. Hidden meanings abound in the Romantic era.
Friedrich believes an artist’s emotions are paramount to the artistry and style of the work, saying "the artist's feeling is his law”. Although he receives rave reviews early in his career, Friedrich falls out of favor later in life, and dies in obscurity.
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