Der Blaue Reiter - Almanac

Almanac

Conceived in June 1911, Der Blaue Reiter Almanach (The Blue Rider Almanac) was published in early 1912, by Piper, Munich, in an edition of 1100 copies; on 11 May, Franz Marc received a first print. The volume was edited by Kandinsky and Marc; its costs were underwritten by the industrialist and art collector Bernhard Koehler, a relative of Macke. It contained reproductions of more than 140 artworks, and 14 major articles. A second volume was planned, but the start of World War I prevented it. Instead, a second edition of the original was printed in 1914, again by Piper.

The contents of the Almanac included:

• Marc's essay "Spiritual Treasures," illustrated with children's drawings, German woodcuts, Chinese paintings, and Pablo Picasso's Woman with Mandolin at the Piano
• an article by French critic Roger Allard on Cubism
• Arnold Schoenberg's article "The Relationship to the Text", and a facsimile of his song "Herzgewächse"
• facsimiles of song settings by Alban Berg and Anton Webern
• Thomas de Hartmann's essay "Anarchy in Music"
• an article about Alexander Scriabin's Prometheus: The Poem of Fire
• an article by Erwin von Busse on Robert Delaunay, illustrated with a print of his The Window on the City
• Macke's essay "Masks"
• Kandinsky's essay "On the Question of Form"
• Kandinsky's "On Stage Composition"
• Kandinsky's The Yellow Sound.

The art reproduced in the Almanac marked a dramatic turn away from a Eurocentric and conventional orientation. The selection was dominated by primitive, folk, and children's art, with pieces from the South Pacific and Africa, Japanese drawings, medieval German woodcuts and sculpture, Egyptian puppets, Russian folk art, and Bavarian religious art painted on glass. The five works by Van Gogh, Cézanne, and Gauguin were outnumbered by seven from Henri Rousseau and thirteen from child artists.