Lizards

Lizards is a powerful woodcut created by Franz Marc in 1912. This particular impression is rendered in stark black ink upon delicate, grey-green Japanese paper, a specific choice that emphasizes both the texture of the wood grain and the intensity of the composition. Marc, a pivotal figure in the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter, frequently employed primal animal forms to explore spiritual and emotional realities divorced from traditional representation. The selection of the woodcut medium itself reflects the early 20th-century avant-garde’s embrace of older, often rougher, printmaking techniques as a rejection of academic polish.

Created within the crucial transitional years of European modernism, spanning the period of 1901 to 1925, the work demonstrates Marc’s deep engagement with abstraction and vitalism. Although the subject here is primarily tonal, focusing on line and form rather than the intense color associated with his famous paintings, the energy inherent in the overlapping lizard shapes is characteristic of the German commitment to expressing subjective experience. Marc depicts these reptiles not merely as scientific specimens, but as dynamic structures interacting forcefully within a confined space.

The resulting tension between the curvilinear bodies and the sharp, angular cuts typical of the woodcut process imbues the piece with raw, vibrating energy. As one of the significant prints produced by Marc, this piece offers crucial insight into the artist’s graphic production alongside his more famous canvases. The absence of color highlights the complexity of the interlocking composition, focusing the viewer entirely on the movement and rhythm captured by the carved block. This important example of early modern German graphic art is held in the distinguished collection of the National Gallery of Art, helping document the evolution of Expressionism and the role of prints in the development of abstract form.