The Blaue Reiter A Modernist Utopia
The Blaue Reiter (“Blue Rider”) group of artists was formed in Munich in 1911 on the initiative of two leading artists of Modernism: Wassily Kandinsky, the pioneer of purely abstract painting, and Franz Marc, the creator of mysterious, abstracted animal pictures. The Russian and the German, together with many other visionary painters in their train, hoped to pursue a new spirit in art. They wanted nothing less than an apotheosis of the spiritual in art. The outbreak of the Great War seemed to put a brutal end to what was at the time the most important avant-garde movement in Germany, but its influence continued unabated and inspired whole generations of international artists to create similar utopias.

Featured Artists: Wladimir Burljuk, Heinrich Campendonk, Robert Delaunay, Alexej Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Alfred Kubin, August Macke, Franz Marc, Gabriele Münter and Marianne von Werefkin.

About the Series:
Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Genre Series features:

• a detailed introduction with approximately 35 photographs, plus a timeline of the most important events (political, cultural, scientific, etc.) that took place during the time period
• a selection of the most important works of the epoch; each is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and, on the facing page, a description/interpretation of the work and brief biography of the artist as well as additional information such as a reference work, portrait of the artist, and/or citations

About the author:
Hajo Düchting (b. 1949 in Düsseldorf) studied art history, philosophy and archaeology in Munich, where he gained his doctorate in 1981 with a thesis on Robert Delaunay’s Windows series. After working in museum and adult education, he moved on to teaching posts and guest professorships at the universities of Munich, Kassel, Leipzig, Saarbrücken and Mainz. Since 2004 he has taught painting and colour theory at the Mediadesign Akademie in Munich. Düchting has published numerous articles on the art of the modern era, colour theory and the teaching of art and has authored a number of TASCHEN titles, including Paul Cézanne (1988), Wassily Kandinsky (1990); Robert and Sonia Delaunay (1993) and Georges Seurat (1999).