Cut Short by War

Both groups burned bright and briefly, then the First World War tore them apart. Franz Marc was killed at Verdun in 1916. August Macke, another Blue Rider painter, died in 1914 in his first month at the front, only 27.

The artists who lived through it changed. The hopeful, spiritual edge faded, and Expressionism turned darker and more haunted, carrying the shock of the trenches into everything that came after.