Picture with Cattle

Looking at Picture with Cattle

At first, Picture with Cattle looks like a dense arrangement of coloured planes. Curved horns and heads gradually identify the animals within it. Franz Marc painted this canvas in 1913; the Bavarian State Painting Collections catalogue it as Rinder I (also rendered Cattle I), inventory 10987. The older English title Picture with Cattle is a useful way into the image, but the collection title identifies this particular work. The painting is held by the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich and is not currently displayed according to its collection record. ^[1]

Watch: Franz Marc

Explore Marc’s blue horses, the Blue Rider circle and the move towards abstraction in English-language videos.

Franz Marc, Blue Horses and Der Blaue Reiter

The Canvas

An English-language introduction to Marc’s blue horses, animals, spirituality and the Blue Rider.

Watch on YouTube

▶01 · Marc and his horsesFranz Marc, Blue Horses and Der Blaue ReiterThe Canvas▶02 · The Blue RiderWho were the Blue Rider?Tate▶03 · Towards abstractionThe Case for AbstractionThe Art Assignment · PBS Digital Studios

Finding animals in the structure

The oil canvas measures 92 × 130.8 cm. A pale horn and dark head rise near the centre; another angular head appears at the right. Greens sweep across the upper part while reds, blues and yellow-browns break up the space below. Animal and landscape no longer sit in separate layers. The same lines that define a muzzle or horn continue into the surrounding colour, asking the eye to move between a recognisable creature and the larger design. ^[1]

This visual difficulty is productive. Marc had painted cattle in a more open setting in Cows, Red, Green, Yellow of 1911. In Rinder I, the animals are harder to isolate. The difference does not mean that the cattle have vanished; horns, eyes and bodies still orient the viewer. Colour now carries much of the work of joining living forms to their setting. Compare the two paintings before trying to assign one fixed symbolic meaning to every colour. ^{[1] [2]}

The collection records Maria Marc, the artist's widow, as the owner after his death in 1916. The Bavarian State Painting Collections acquired the painting from her in 1949. Those dates are part of this object's documented route to Munich and should be kept distinct from the painting's 1913 making. Looking closely at the pale central horn and the orange head at right makes the animals legible again, even as the surrounding planes keep the scene restless. ^[1]