Fighting Forms
1914 · Oil on canvas · Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
📦 Free shipping on every order, arriving in 4–9 business days with production included. Express ($14.90) at checkout arrives in 4–6 business days.
About this work
- Artist
- Franz Marc (1880–1916)
- Year
- 1914
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 91 × 131.5 cm
- Collection
- Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (Bavarian State Painting Collections)
- Movement
- Expressionism
Two great vortices collide across a wide canvas: at left a branching, flame-like mass of bright red, at right a compact, rolling form of dark blue-black, with streaks of yellow, white and green whipping around them. No animals or landscape remain, only colour and movement, the red seeming to advance while the blue recoils. Marc painted it in 1914, months before the war began, and it is among his most abstract and last works; his widow Maria Marc described it as unfinished, although he had signed it. In his colour symbolism red stood for heavy, violent matter and blue for the spiritual, and the picture has often been read as a struggle between them, or as a premonition of the war in which he was killed two years later. It is in the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, part of the Bavarian State Painting Collections.
This exhibition-poster edition shows the whole work beneath original typography set in-house. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
A flame-red vortex clashing with a dark blue-black whirl, for a living room, study or home office at 16×24 in black. A white, charcoal or deep red wall; it pairs with Kandinsky's Improvisation Gorge.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Exhibition poster of a Expressionism painting
- Era
- 20th century (1914)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Palette
- cream & beige
- Mood
- classic
- Rooms
- living room, study or library, home office, dining room, dorm room
- Good gift for
- housewarming, art lovers
Size. We'd hang this one at 16×24. Prints at 12×18, 16×24, 24×36 in — 12×18 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 16×24 above a desk, console or in a hallway; 24×36 as the statement piece above a sofa or bed.
Framing. Exhibition posters sit best in a slim black frame with no mat — the typeset margin is the mat.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
Details & materials
Shipping & returns
Is this the whole painting, or a crop?
Is Fighting Forms in the public domain?
What is it printed on?
When was Fighting Forms painted, and in what medium?
What size works above a sofa or bed?
About this design
The Madten promise
A fine-art print
The same artwork as a clean fine-art print — the image shown large with a minimal caption.
