The Bewitched Mill (1913): Artwork and History

The Bewitched Mill (1913) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Franz Marc German, 1880–1916.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Among the German Expressionists, artists who used strong color and exaggerated form to express emotional content, Franz Marc was especially committed to his empathic interest in the life of animals. "Is there a more mysterious idea," he asked, "than to imagine how nature is reflected in the eyes of animals?" Beginning in 1905, he devoted himself to representing the world with a fresh and purifying vision. Marc painted The Bewitched Mill following a sojourn to the Italian town of Merano in the southern Tirol. The work's title refers to the "magical" harmony he sensed there between human life, represented by the houses and mill on the left, and nature, embodied by the lyrical region of trees and animals on the right.

Object facts

• Title: The Bewitched Mill
• Date: 1913
• Artist attribution: Franz Marc German, 1880–1916
• Place of origin: Germany
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Without frame: 130.2 × 90.8 cm (51 5/16 × 35 3/4 in.); 130.2 × 91.2 cm (51 1/4 × 35 7/8 in.)
• Type: Painting
• Department: Modern Art
• Reference number: 1931.522

Collection credit

Arthur Jerome Eddy Memorial Collection

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.