We are dealing with a book with very few texts. What the author says is, moreover, that it is an idea, that it is an artist and that it paints animals of different colors. “I am an artist and I paint…”, this is how the book begins, and we can see the same artist willing to paint on a canvas. Below are many paintings by the artist in two sheets and vivid colors: the blue horse, the red crocodile, the yellow cow, the pink rabbit, the green lion, the orange elephant, the purple fox, the black polar bear and, finally, the donkey with so many colors. The reader who's reading this

comment can give you an idea before you get closer to the book, you might think that those animals are fantastic, but they're actually quite realistic, but they do have a slightly special color. They are paintings that break realism; we can see the horse in the trot, with the hair in the air and very alive; but the horse, which is blue… and who knows it, who has seen a blue horse?

And yet, the last sentence of the book is very clear: “I’m a refined artist.” This is what the painter who is looking at us tells us; from the initial image, from which one had to start painting, with small changes: the clothes are stained of color, on the ground there are also paint remnants, the table in which the colors are also stained… and on the backdrop there is a blue horse. x

Eric Carle is a well-known author in children’s albums – he already has an author in Basque before this – we can say that he is an illustrator of renowned international prestige, and on this occasion he wanted to pay tribute to Franz Marc, a very valuable offer to understand the demands for freedom and innovation of the book and of the painters Eric Carle and Franz Marc. Franz Marc painted animals through vivid and unusual colors and suffered Nazi persecution, accused of making a degenerated art, so his art was forbidden.

Eric Carl claims with this work the Blue Horse (painted in 1911) of Franz Marc, the freedom of this art, beauty… and to do so he has offered us today’s children a book of adults composed of curious, beautiful and free paintings.