It is like a presentiment of the war, terrible and gripping; I can hardly realize that I painted it myself [remark on his painting 'The fate of Animals', created in 1913]. In the hazy photograph, at any rate, it has an indefinable reality that quite made my flesh creep. It is artistically logical to paint such paintings 'before' a war, not as stupid reminiscences 'after' a war. [Marc was soldier in World War 1]. For one should paint constructive, prophetic pictures, not souvenirs, as is the usual fashion. And those are all I have in mind. It used to puzzle me sometimes, but now I know why it has to be like that. But these old pictures [his paintings, he made before the War] from the autumn Salon are sure to be resurrected again..

In a letter to his wife, 17 April 1915; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 445