Die drei Reiter II: Hl. Martin

Hans von Marées's Die drei Reiter II: Hl. Martin (St. Martin of the Three Riders series, 1885) belongs to the German painter's late cycle of monumental figurative works exploring classical and Christian mythology through a radically simplified, monumental style that anticipates twentieth-century art. Von Marées lived largely in Italy and was deeply influenced by Renaissance fresco painting; his Three Riders series depicts the legendary saints on horseback — St. Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar, St. George slaying the dragon, St. Hubert encountering the stag — as heroic archetypes rather than conventional religious narrative.

Von Marées works in a severely simplified manner that rejects Impressionist concern with surface appearance in favor of structural essentials: the horse and rider reduced to monumental forms, the landscape to broad planes of color, the narrative gesture to its clearest symbolic expression. His palette is warm and limited — ochres, earth reds, muted blues — applied in broad areas rather than detailed description. The anti-illusionist approach is deliberate, aiming at timeless archetypal power rather than period naturalism.