The hauntingly beautiful Tierschicksale (Animal Destinies, sometimes translated as Fate of the Animals), painted by Franz Marc (1880-1916) in 1913, is one of the highlights in the vast collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel. When Marc saw a postcard of this painting while serving at the front in France, where he died soon afterwards at Verdun, he commented that seeing his painting again was eerie and hard to recall painting it. It seemed like a premonition of the war, gruesome and moving.
The large 195 x 264 cm (76 by 104 inches) painting was damaged by fire in 1917 and restored by Paul Klee, a close friend of Marc. This explains the brown tint on the right side of the work. To protect the painting further, the lights in this room change constantly between white and a light shade of blue.
This painting is sometimes also known as Animal Destinies (The Trees Showed Their Rings, the Animals Their Veins) (Tierschicksale (Die Bäume zeigten ihre Ringe, die Tiere ihre Adern)) from a quote in a letter Marc later wrote to Auguste Macke. On the rear of the painting, he wrote »Und alles Sein ist flammend Leid« (“And all being is flaming sorrow”).
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