August Macke: Flower Carpet

Flower Carpet, August Macke, 1913, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich

Flowers never tire me. And these ones are alive, fresh, luminous, immediate. One easily imagines this carpet of blooms just watered, fragrant, sheltered by the canopy of garden trees. In this late May light, they mirror exactly what we see on our own flowerbeds. A genuine feast for the eyes.

See

A single white petal, almost nacreous, catches the light first. Around it, everything erupts. Crimson tulips, blush-pink lilies, yellows of an almost strident intensity. August Macke sets his canvas down at the heart of the border, no distance, no horizon. The vertical format heightens the sense of encroachment. Paint is applied in taut, nervous passages, impastoed in places, weightless in others. A deep blue-violet ground makes each corolla tremble, as if lit by storm light. Look closely: there is no air. No empty space. Only this plant-world, dense and nearly suffocating.

Understand

In 1913, August Macke is at the height of his powers. The Blaue Reiter is in full force in Munich. Kandinsky theorises colour. Franz Marc paints his totemic animals. Macke turns to the garden. That choice is a statement. Within a movement straining toward abstraction and the spiritual, he returns to the sensory world, to flowering matter, to pure chromatic joy. The oil on canvas, 60.5 x 48.5 cm, is an intimate format for a subject that overflows its edges. The tension holds: this Carpet of Flowers is expressionist in colour, yet firmly grounded in the visible world. Macke refuses to choose. He would die the following year, aged 27, on the Marne front.

Feel

One almost senses the dampness of the soil. The green smell of broken stems. Spring morning warmth against the skin. Macke is not painting flowers. He is painting what beauty does to the body when it arrives without warning. Notice how the eye finds no place to settle. That is deliberate. This is the living world, in its perfect disorder.

A new hang at the Lenbachhaus

The Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich, which holds this Carpet of Flowers, has since 10 March 2026 presented a new staging of its collection: “Beyond the World. The Blue Rider”. August Macke features among the leading artists, in dialogue with significant new acquisitions. The exhibition runs until 5 September 2027.
Source: lenbachhaus.de