Wassily Kandinsky,
Franz Marc,
August Macke,
Alexej von Jawlensky,
Marianne von Werefkin,
Gabriele Münter,
Lyonel Feininger,
Albert Bloch and others founded the group in response to the rejection of Kandinsky's painting Last Judgement from an exhibition.
Der Blaue Reiter lacked a central artistic manifesto, but was centred around Kandinsky and Marc.
Paul Klee was also involved.
Wassily Kandinsky, Der
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Blaue Reiter, 1903
The name of the movement comes from a painting by Kandinsky created in 1903 (see illustration). It is also claimed that the name could have derived from
Marc's enthusiasm for horses and Kandinsky's love of the colour blue. For Kandinsky, blue is the colour of spirituality: the darker the blue, the more it awakens human desire for the eternal (see his 1911 book On the Spiritual in Art).
Within the group, artistic approaches and aims varied from artist to artist; however, the artists shared a common desire to express spiritual truths through their art. They believed in the promotion of modern art; the connection between visual art and music; the spiritual and symbolic associations of colour; and a spontaneous, intuitive approach to painting. Members were interested in European
medieval art and
primitivism, as well as the contemporary, non-figurative art scene in
France. As a result of their encounters with
cubist,
fauvist and
Rayonist ideas, they moved towards abstraction.
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