Tags
art, art criticism, art history, atomic bomb, Fates of Animals, Franz Marc, Gardner's Art Through the Ages
Many years ago, we first viewed Fate of the Animals without any context. You know what we thought? Damn! These animals are rocking out! Only later did we discover the angular, energetic rush of color and movement represented Franz Marc’s fear of the atomic bomb. He didn’t mean these animals rocked. He meant they got nuked!
Despite missing the point completely, we keep this in our Top Ten Paintings of All Time. That list also includes Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion, and… well, let’s just cover that some other day. For now, let’s see what our trusty art history book has to say about Franz Marc.
Mars Will Send No More 
I have never heard the story of this painting. So awful and powerful. I love it. Thank you for sharing it. I will probably still leave this painting out of my class for 5 year olds.
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Truly awful and powerful, too. “All being is flaming suffering,” it says he wrote of the piece. Pretty heavy!
Nevertheless, we can hardly see it as anything but animals at a rock concert. Light show! Loud music blowing them away! And look at that deer… headbanging like there’s no tomorrow!
Franz usually appears in art collections for his serenely posed animals: deer, foxes, horses. That’s nice. But this one renders those animals in six solid feet of rock and roll power.
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