When we discovered this painting by Franz Marc, we were struck by its colours, so vivid and unexpected as a way of depicting cattle in nature. The yellow of the cow, the red of the calf, the green of the bull carry us into a symbolic, interior world. But can one represent reality with such radical departure and feel no unease about it? What could the artists of the Blue Rider movement have been trying to express? These are the questions VMuseum wanted to share with you today.
See
Three cattle take possession of the canvas. The yellow cow rears up, graceful and luminous. The green bull stretches out, massive and calm. The red calf leaps, joyful. Around them, a Bavarian landscape bursts open: deep blues, purple mountains, orange meadows. Fluid forms nestle into one another without sharp outlines. The composition, rhythmed by curves, charges each creature with an almost musical animal vibration.
Understand
Franz Marc painted Kühe, rot, grün, gelb in 1911, in Sindelsdorf. That same year, alongside Kandinsky, Macke and Münter, he co-founded the Blue Rider almanac. The painter was then developing a true chromatic code. Blue embodies masculine spirituality; yellow, feminine gentleness. Red evokes raw, earthly matter. Green soothes and harmonises. This grammar of colour, laid out in his letters to August Macke, structures his entire body of animal painting. Franz Marc sought to paint the soul of animals rather than their appearance. The fluid oil technique and simplification of form anticipate German Expressionism and pave the way for the abstraction that emerged from Munich.
Feel
Observe the unhurried stillness of the bull, the momentum of the calf, the softness of the cow. A tenderness flows between these three bodies. Marc invites us to set aside our rational eye and savour a more secret, almost mystical harmony. Before this oil on canvas from the Lenbachhaus, you may sense a utopia: a world reconciled, where colour becomes spiritual language. The animal is restored to the sacred, a forgotten sibling of the human.
On view at the Lenbachhaus
Since March 2026, the Lenbachhaus has been presenting Über die Welt hinaus. Der Blaue Reiter (Beyond the World. The Blue Rider). The exhibition repositions the movement within an international network in which art becomes a force for social transformation. Franz Marc is shown in dialogue with Kandinsky, Münter, Macke, Klee, Jawlensky and Werefkin. (lenbachhaus.de)
A question for you
💭 And you, what colour would you choose to express your soul?
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!
About this work
- Cows, Red, Green, Yellow
- Franz Marc
- 1911
- Oil on canvas
- 24⅜ × 34⅜ in. (62 × 87.5 cm)
- Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Munich
- https://www.lenbachhaus.de/en/digital/collection-online/detail/kuehe-rot-gruen-gelb-30020407
