Marc, the son of a painter, at first could not decide between a career
in theology, philosophy, or art. In 1910, Marc painted "Bathing Girls,"
inspired in part by an exhibition of Cézanne's "Bathers," which
encouraged Marc to create his own image of a primitive paradise, with
his own visual language. In Marc's lyrical version, the same undulating
lines and fluid forms that animate the bodies also animate the
landscape. It is a deliberate effort to point to the universal force
that moves through all the world, the vital force that Marc called "the
organic rhythm that beats in all things."
