 |
| Statue of a black smith |
We were in the small town of Kochel am See over the four-day Easter weekend. The main goal was to visit the Franz Marc museum in town. We were not expecting much, maybe some of Marc's studio equipment, a sketch book and maybe a diary. But the museum was great. It had some of Marc's best works. I settled on a poster of "Deer in a Flower Garden" for my souvenir.
Link to Wikipedia article on Franz Marc
here
 |
| Deer in a flower garden |
The town is on a lake at the foot of the Alps, and the museum overlooks the lake. We took a walk along the shore on our second day. The cherry trees were in blossom, and very few people were to be seen.
 |
| Kochelsee |
 |
| Cherry blossoms at Kochelsee |
On the walk from the center of town to the lake we passed through a woods that borders a marsh land. The bogs there produce a type of reed that the farmers use for bedding for the livestock (mainly cattle and sheep). The reeds are harvested in the winter, when the bogs are frozen over, and then the reeds are piled in stacks around a central pole. The sign in the photo has a picture of three straw stacks as painted by Marc. In the distance are the dry, brown reeds. After seeing this we understood the painting we had seen in the museum called Reedstacks in Snow by Marc. I thought they were pears.
 |
| Reedstacks in snow |
Also on the walk to the lake we came upon a patch of what looked like Lilies of the Valley. But these are nothing like the extremely poisonous plant. These are Bärlauch (translates as bear leeks), an edible plant that has leaves that taste like onion and garlic and a flower that tastes like cabbage. We had seen Bärlauch on all the restaurant menus: Bälauch cream soup, Bärlauch omelette, Bärlauch pesto on fish, etc. Bärlauch is notorious because it is delicious but there are always a couple of deaths each year from people who mistake Lilies of the Valley for Bärlauch.
 |
| Münterhaus |
We made a day trip to Murnau, where a couple other expressionist artists lived and worked. Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky lived in a little house overlooking the town. Along with Marc and another painter named August Macke, they formed the core of the group of expressionist painters called the Der blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider). The two artists painted many scenes of the town from their house and of the house itself. Just behind the house is a path through the woods that leads back to the center of town.
 |
| Murnau near Münterhaus |
There is an old Schloss (palace) in town built around 1233 that houses a museum today, and we visited it to see some paintings by Marc in addition to quite a few by Münter and Kandinsky. These were the best years for Kandinsky. When he returned to Russia after the outbreak of the first World War, he suffered depression and his art became more abstract. Münter continued to live and paint, off and on, in the little house, but she also suffered from depression after Kandinsky left her. As for their friends Marc and Macke, they were killed in the war at a young age.
Münter eventually gained a new companion, a gallery owner, with whom she lived from the 1920s until her death in 1962.
 |
| Terrace in front of Schlossmuseum |
Article about Münter and Expressionism on Wikipedia
here
