Indians on Horses

"Indians on Horses" from 1911 clearly testifies to August Macke's contact with the ideas of the 'Blue Rider' and his temporary efforts to make his spiritualized forms of expression fruitful for himself. The choice of motif alone means a departure from Macke's fundamental artistic credo of translating the tangible, visible world into the sensual form of a picture. Two petite Indians, adorned with feather bushes, ride through a darkly glowing, colored fantasy landscape on the small wooden panel. The structure of the mountain region of transparent, formulaic surfaces, which is undefined in its dimensions and therefore difficult to grasp, and the sloping trees reveal the direct influence of Franz Marc's pictures. "Indians on Horses" may have been written in the summer of 1911, when Marc returned from Mackes' station for a few days on his way back from his wedding in London and painted both artists side by side in the studio, as Marc had previously dreamed of in his letters. Macke had stayed in a lively correspondence with the friend since his return from Tegernsee. As early as 1910 Marc had tried to inspire him for the ideas of the 'New Munich Artists' Association, which he himself had joined after meeting Wassily Kandinsky. However, the Munich group initially met Macke's immediate, little-reflected sense of form with reservations. "The association is very serious and as an art I love it most of all. But, but - it doesn't shake me. I am very interested… Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Bechtejeff and Erbslöh have a huge artistic feeling. But the means of expression are too great for what they want to say ... I think they struggle too much for form. "That is how Macke wrote to Marc in September 1910 after visiting one of her exhibitions. The following year, sometimes also from Kandinsky's art strongly fascinated, he then gets closer to the spell of the 'Blue Rider'. The general preoccupation with the art of primitives also came to the fore for him Art of expression and diverse emotional impressions. at times also fascinated by Kandinsky's art, he gets closer to the 'Blue Rider'. The general preoccupation with the art of primitives also came to the fore for him. His contribution "Masks" for the almanac revolves in poetic form around the inner relationship between primitive expression and diverse emotional impressions. at times also fascinated by Kandinsky's art, he gets closer to the 'Blue Rider'. The general preoccupation with the art of primitives also came to the fore for him. His contribution "Masks" for the almanac revolves in poetic form around the inner relationship between primitive expression and diverse emotional impressions. The search for cultures untouched by civilization may have determined Macke's choice of subject for this and two other Indian paintings. But not only a thirst for adventure and a naive narrative play a role in his pictures, for Macke the magic of form was always the access to the essence of a thing. "Incredible ideas express themselves in tangible forms. Tangible through our senses as a star, thunder, flower, as form," he wrote in the almanac, and further: "Our senses are the bridge from the incomprehensible to the tangible." For Macke, the visible remained the filter of his art. He soon turned away from the burden of thought of the 'Blue Rider', at whose first exhibition he was also not properly represented. Image and text made available by the Municipal gallery in the Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau Munich under CC BY-SA 4.0