Franz Marc
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Franz Marc Details
About the Author Susanna Partsch (born in 1952) studied art history first in Heidelberg and, between 1980 and 1985, at the Wilhelm Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen, Germany. Presently a freelance writer in Munich, she has written books on Rembrandt, Gustav Klimt, Franz Marc and Paul Klee. Read more
Reviews
This review is of the large format (9.1 x 0.3 x 11.8 inches) Taschen edition of this book instead, which was the first edition published, as opposed to the latter smaller format editions (8.5 x 0.5 x 10.3 inches). The text is the same but, unsurprisingly, the illustrations are much larger and higher quality than in the smaller edition – if you can find the larger edition this alone makes it worth purchasing over and above the later smaller editions.Any review of this book would have to start out by stating that it is part of the Taschen “Basic Art” series. As such it is only 96 pages long and about half of these consist of illustrations of one type or another (primarily of the artist’s work but also a few B&W of the artist himself, with well-known artists of the time, etc.). Hence if one is looking for an encyclopedic book on the artist this is not. However, despite the book’s short length, it does a very good job at tying the artist’s life to his works as well as expounding on how his style developed over the course of his life. If someone is looking for a short book on just this, the book it is highly recommended.The reader learns how Mr. Marc, early in life, considered a number of professions but decided to pursue art after having completed his military service. While there he served in the cavalry where the author believes he picked up his love of horses and all things animal. This served as a very important source of inspiration for him throughout his life.The reader also learns how Mr. Marc studied in Munich initially and how his “style” fitted into this (i.e., Munich school) but how, over time, this changed. The author also does a decent job at describing what she considered influenced his path of styles over his short life (he died at only 36 years old while serving on the Western Front). This included visits to France where a variety of French artists influenced him (but, importantly, others did not – the author goes into some detail here). Eventually he came to his own independent, different and unique style of painting. The author does a very good job at showing, via the included illustrations, how this style developed. The reader can see it unfolding before his or her eyes.One last point to note is that the illustrations are quite nice. Not up to par for art museum books costing $50 - $100 but unsurpassed for those in the $10 - $15 range. This is very typical of most books, but not all, in the Taschen Basic Art series (the book in this series on Hieronymus Bosch is one of the few examples of poor illustration in a Basic Art book).All and all highly recommended for anyone seeking an introduction to this wonderful artist.