Blue

The Large Blue Horses, 1911
Franz Marc
oil on canvas
41-5/8 x 71-5/16 in.
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) expressionist group. The group formed around Kandinsky and Marc, who both considered blue the color of spirituality.(Stokstad, 1069). The artists of the group were joined by their common goals with manifested themselves in loosely connected visuality. Yet a significant similarity in their work focused on the intensity of color. Marc painted animals rather than people because he believed they had a stronger spiritual relationship with nature. His animals, like the horses in this painting flow and merge with their natural surroundings.

The Sketch

Page from George Grosz's sketchbook, Manhattan Skyline, 1950-51
George Grosz (1893-1959)
38 pages of off-white wove paper; 23.3 x 15.3 cm.

My intentions were to share with you one of George Grosz's paintings of Manhattan but I had some trouble finding a good image of one, but I am including it here as well (Lower Manhattan, 1934, oil on cardboard, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) I did in my inquiry find something very exciting though, a digitization of a sketchbook focused on the Manhattan skyline and mice! Why mice, I'm not sure, but being able to see the sketches of an artist such as Grosz is excellent. The sketchbook was part of an the exhibition, Under Cover: Artist's Sketchbooks held at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard which has a large collections of intact artist sketchbooks. They digitized a portion of them, which can be accessed on the Harvard art museums website.

George Grosz is well known for his bitter satirical images but spent a lot of time with his adopted city of New York in imagery as well and being a sucker for nyc images, well, I think my choice is obvious. For today, I am more interested in the aspect of sketchbooks as an entry into the mind and work ethic of an artist, from vague sketches (check out Fragonard's) to full-fledged works of art.

More online sketchbooks

Fascinating little article from 1932, when George Grosz first came to the U.S. to teach at the Art Student's League.