Thursday, June 13, 2013

The Little Blue Horses

artwork: franz marc


The Little Blue Horses
by Pat Tompkins

Bold swoops of color, the canvas filled
 by three muscular blue animals,
 round haunches foreshortened
 black manes trace their curved necks.

Grazing a bright yellow and green field,
 heads tucked, shy, they do not gaze at the viewer.
 Pure potential energy of the new century
 before the war. The artist died at Verdun.

A quarter century later: Munich,
 an exhibit of “degenerate art” hosted by Hitler.
 “Die Kleinen blauen Pferde” shown
 with works by other artists. Verboten.

Picture Nazis angry about a painting
 of blue horses by Franz Marc.
 Goebbels and his ilk upset by horses
 the wrong color. Imagine the danger.



~ originally published in Everyday Weirdness