by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 17, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Looking at The Waterfall
Franz Marc painted The Waterfall (Women under a Waterfall) (Der Wasserfall (Frauen unter einem Wasserfall)) in 1912. Sotheby’s documented it as a large oil on canvas, 165.5 × 158.5 cm, with an unusually explicit subject: human figures and animals gathered around a falling stream. The longer title matters because Marc later used a waterfall again in The Bewitched Mill, a different 1913 painting. [1] [2]
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A blue-and-white ribbon of water curves down the left side. Around it, red rocklike forms and diagonals press towards the centre. Several small figures sit or crouch among the shapes; a pale figure at the right is easier to spot than the others. The scene is crowded, yet the fall gives the eye a route through it. Its flowing edge is echoed by bent bodies and curved colour bands. These observations do not require every abstract plane to be assigned a literal object. [1] [2]
Marc is often introduced through his animal pictures, but this canvas keeps people in the picture. Sotheby’s connects its figures, animals and landscape to the movement of the falls, while a Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza study groups it with his 1912 Shepherds and Dream. Those comparisons place the painting among experiments with human and animal life in one compressed, rhythmic space. They should not turn the figures into a fixed allegory. [1] [3]
In The Bewitched Mill, water and buildings remain visible but the figures of this earlier waterfall scene are gone. Reading the two paintings together shows Marc returning to moving water while changing the balance between living bodies and the landscape around them.
Artwork Directory
This source-checked selection contains 192 identified works and print designs from the current Franz Marc research set. It is a curated selection, not a complete catalogue raisonné. Some works link to their article here; others link to a collection record. Unresolved identifications are omitted.
Discussion
Human figures, animals and falling water share a crowded, moving space.
Reader Insights
Observation
Where does the blue-white fall lead your eye among the figures?
Comparison
What changes when you look from this waterfall to The Bewitched Mill?
Interpretation
Do the curved shapes unite the figures with the landscape or keep them apart?
Join the Conversation
Which detail changed the way you saw this work? Share a close observation or a comparison with another Marc picture.
References
- Sotheby’s, lot 41. View source.
- Commons exact reproduction. View source.
- Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza study. View source.
- Related artwork image, Yellow Cow: Photograph by Dr. Alexey Yakovlev; resized without crop or colour change, CC BY-SA 2.0.
- Splash image: Franz Marc, Der Wasserfall (Frauen unter einem Wasserfall), 1912, oil on canvas, 165.5 × 158.5 cm. Public-domain Sotheby’s-sourced reproduction from Wikimedia Commons, resized without crop or colour change. Image file and rights.
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