Essay by Beth Cloud, Class of 2007

Over time, Marc asserted his personal style through his choice of subject and color. By 1911 he had established subjective symbolism for his color use. Marc viewed certain colors to represent different ideas; blue for spirituality and maleness, yellow for femininity and sensuality and red for terrestrial materiality (Rosenthal 18). While he continued to define his personal style, Marc joined with Vasily Kandinsky (web gallery 153) to form Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) of German Expressionism. This group, germinated within the Expressionist movement and was composed of a variety of artists who emphasized a conceptual approach to their work rather than the formalist ideas of Cubism (Selz 206).

Following the formation of Der Blaue Reiter, Marc and several other artists, including Kandinsky and Erich Heckel, began a project to represent the books of the Bible through illustrations. Marc chose the Book of Creation as his contribution to the project (Myers 228). In 1914 he conceived two woodcuts toward this project, Story of Creation I and Story of Creation II. Both works are characterized by their use of flowing forms and kinetic lines. The animals and plants depicted in these pieces are embryonic in nature, demonstrating the idea of a beginning rather than an ending. The presence of animals was meant to portray the conceptual post-apocalyptic world, which is free of the impure man (Levine 139-140).

Specifically in Story of Creation II, we see the moment when God commands: "Let the earth bring forth living creatures," just before its actualization. An embryonic image of some sort of feline creature emerges toward the upper right, beneath the sun. To the left emerges what seems to be a horse or a deer, and in the lower center, there is the genesis of an unidentifiable figure. These images appear to emerge from within the composition. Both the heavens and the earth seem to flow together and converge in the center of the work. Plant life below germinates. We thus see creation occurring in one turbulent moment (Levine 139-142). The scene is likely foretelling the recreation that would follow the apocalypse.