August Macke

August Macke (1887 – 1914) was a German Expressionist painter and one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). He met Robert Delaunay in Paris in 1912 and Delaunay's chromatic style Orphism had a profound influence on Macke's subsequent works. Macke lived in a particularly turbelent time in Western history as well as the history of art, which was reflected in his works. His final painting, before his premature death at the beginning of the First World War at the front in Champagne, France, entitled Farewell, is an atmospheric depiction of the general mood of despair and lack of hope created by the outbreak of war.