GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM

AUGUST MACKE 1887 - 1914

August Macke was born in Meschede, Germany, and during his childhood he spent time in Basle where he came into contact with the work of Böcklin. He was taught by Corinth, and travelled widely throughout Europe. He married the beautiful Elisabeth Gerhardt in 1909.

He met Franz Marc in 1910 in Munich, and with him established the Blaue Reiter the following year. In 1912 they both journeyed to Paris, where they discovered Cubism and the work of Delaunay. In 1914 he visited North Africa with Paul Klee. He was killed in battle, at the age of 27, that same year.

His early Impressionist style developed into a use of strong, sunlit color applied in painterly facets of light. His preferred subject matter remained urban scenes of shopping and leisure. His North African work had a more structured appearance, and in 1913 he experimented with pure abstraction and also produced many watercolors.

One cannot help but wonder how his style would have matured had he lived past his 27th year. Upon his death, Franz Marc, who was later to also be killed in the war, wrote him this obituary:

"August Macke - 'Young Macke' - is dead. Those who have followed the course of German art during these last, eventful years, those who sensed what the future held in store for the development of that art, also knew Macke. And those of us who worked with him- we, his friends, we knew what promise this man of genius secretly bore in him. His life described one of the boldest and most beautiful curves in the development of German art; and with his death that curve has been rudely broken. There is not one among us who can take it further. Each of us goes his own way; wherever our paths meet, we shall feel his absence. We Painters know that without his harmonies whole octaves of color will disappear from German art, and the sounds of the colors remaining will become duller and sharper. He gave a brighter and purer sound to color than any of us; he gave it the clarity and brightness of his whole being."

Lady in a Green Jacket, done during a stay at Thun Lake in 1913, shows an especially harmonious arrangement of form and a fine equilibration of color. A year later, the alternation among statuesque figures, softly rendered foliage and grass, and blocky, Cubistic houses in the background, gave way to the more atmospheric approach of Man Reading in the Park (1914). Here, as G. Vriesen notes, "corporeality dissolves in light and ambient atmosphere ... without, however, forfeiting vital objective presence. An organic vibration of air, space and illumination, an emerging and passing away, a blurring and intermerging, dominate the picture."

One of Macke's last paintings was the unfinished work that now bears the title Farewell. "With absolute clarity," Vriesen states, "the picture reflects the gloom and numbness that befell public life" before the first year of war was out, "the mood of uncertainty and disquiet which took possession of Macke as well."


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