The Fate of the Animals

<p><strong>In 1913 Franz Marc one of the key figures of German Expressionism created a masterpiece: <em>The Fate of the Animals</em></strong>. With its violent slashes of color and line the painting seemed to pre-figure both the outbreak of World War I and more eerily Marc's own death in an artillery barrage at the Battle of Verdun three years later.</p><p> </p><p>With his signature blend of wide-ranging erudition and lively accessible prose Morgan Meis explores Marc's painting in depth guided in part by a series of letters Marc wrote to his wife Maria while he was a soldier in the war. In those letters Marc explores the nature of art the fate of European civilization and the inner spiritual nature of all life. </p><p> </p><p>Along the way Meis brings in other artists such as D.H. Lawrence Edgar Degas and Paul Klee to flesh out his argument. <em>The Fate of the Animals</em> also explores the darker undercurrents of German apocalyptic thinking in Marc's time especially Norse mythology and the ancient Vedic texts as they influenced Schopenhauer Nietzsche and Heidegger. </p><p> </p><p><em>The Fate of the Animals</em> is the second volume of Meis's <em>Three Paintings Trilogy</em> the first volume of which <em>The Drunken Silenus</em> examined a painting by Rubens. The third volume (forthcoming) will consider a painting by Joan Mitchell.</p>