Genesis II by Franz Marc is a significant print created in 1914 using the demanding medium of the color woodcut. This work belongs to a crucial period in German artistic history, immediately preceding the outbreak of World War I, and exemplifies Marc's intense engagement with abstraction and elemental expression associated with the Der Blaue Reiter group. The classification of the work as a print highlights Marc’s commitment to graphic arts, recognizing the woodcut as a powerful tool for visual impact and dramatic simplification. The complex process of creating a color woodcut requires distilling forms down to essential shapes and relying on bold lines and planes of color, a technique Marc utilized to convey the powerful, primal forces suggested by the title, Genesis II.
Marc employed highly saturated color blocks and simplified, curving forms to depict the spiritual and primordial energies of creation. Unlike his famous animal paintings, this work pushes further into non-representational abstraction, using rhythm and color modulation to evoke a sense of pure, spiritual rebirth. The radical formal experimentation taking place in Germany during this era sought to revitalize art through direct, emotional expression. The survival of rare prints like this provides valuable insight into the German Expressionist movement's final phase before the war dissolved the avant-garde landscape. Today, this important example of modernist graphic arts resides in the comprehensive collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
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