Zoological Garden I

"Zoological Garden I" is one of Macke's best-known paintings, and the artist himself valued the work highly. With it, a complex of topics, which should increasingly become Macke's own domain, reached a first climax: the quiet world of 'modern paradises', the world of walkers, newspaper readers, people in the garden restaurant, in front of shop windows or on the waterfront in relaxed idleness. Macke first came across the new motif of the zoological garden, which subsequently kept him busy, when he was in Amsterdam in the spring of 1912. Numerous sketches were made in the zoo there, which Macke apparently intended to transfer to colored paintings even then. The motif of the parrot sitting on the perch, in "Zoologischer Garten I" Mastering the foreground in triumphant colors is pre-formulated in these sketches. Macke then went to work in the Cologne zoo, whose restaurant was run by the Worringer family, who was his friend; from the abundance of studies made with zeal, not only this painting emerged, but also "Small Zoological Garden in Yellow and Brown" (privately owned) and the triptych "Large Zoological Garden" (Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund). Macke's new development is evident in the masterful composition of "Zoological Garden I". Already in January 1912 he had seen Robert Delaunay's "Eiffel Tower", among other pictures of the 'Blue Rider', whose rhythmic bursting into light-containing, splintering forms made a great impression on German artists at the time. Delaunay's 'orphic', colored cubism is echoed in the angular, broken forms, which now restructure Macke's rich color. The individual picture elements, such as the block-like simplified, de-individualized male figures with bowler hats, are distributed in a rhythmic, harmoniously balanced manner, particularly striking in the group of three staggered back figures in front of the cockatoos on the right. A delicate sparkle of color is interspersed between humans and animals through the precious 'trimmings' of flowers and lights; the figures themselves merge with the colored background. Macke had to pay special attention to the theme of the zoological garden: his sensual exoticism, domesticated for the enjoyable idleness of the citizen, is transformed for him into the dream-lost experience of a peaceful harmony between man and nature. Description made available by the Municipal gallery in the Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau Munich under CC BY-SA 4.0