“Colour has taken possession of me: no longer do I have to chase after it, I know that it has a hold of me forever. That is the significance of this blessed moment. Colour and I are one.”

- Paul Klee (c.1914)

Paul Klee 1879-1940

PAUL KLEE

Lacks the intense feeling of Pablo Picasso’s work. Or the formal mastery of Matisse.

Klee’s ideas about pictorial space derive from Delaunay’s work, notably his windows series.

Like Kandinsky, Klee valued the “primitive” and especially the art of children. He admired the freedom, innocence and directness of their work.

Both Kandinsky and Klee saw a connection between painting and music – seeking a visual art that could communicate emotion as clearly as music.

Klee’s spidery exact line and scratching around the edges of his fantasy is full of post cubist overlaps.

Hammamet with Its Mosque, 1914 Watercolor and pencil on paper (20.6

x 19.4 cm)

Look at this art work and describe Klee’s use of colour and line within this work. What other art styles can you see within this work?

Paul Klee, Red and white domes, 1914. Watercolour, vellum mounted on cardboard, 14 x 13 cm.

Robert Delaunay Simultaneous Windows (1st Part, 2nd Motif),

1912.

                                                                                                                                                  

Klee’s work was inspired by the work of Delaunay, very much like his friends Marc and Macke.

Marc, Deer in the

Monastery Garden, 1912,

Auguste Macke,

Promenade, 1913.

Klee, Remembrance of a Garden , 1914, Watercolor on

linen paper mounted on cardboard, 25 x 21 cm

Klee, Southern (Tunisian) Gardens 1919, Watercolor, 9.5 x 7.5 in.

Miraculous Landing, or the "112!", 1920

In 1918, Klee evoked the following image in his diary: "The storm on the wheat field was captivating; I'll paint a ship sailing on waves of rye." Klee never painted that picture, but this one seems just as miraculous. A boat of the type of Noah's Ark—the "112"—is moored to a boathouse. The face of the girl in the left window is expressionless; her eyes are closed. Perhaps this "miraculous landing" exists only in her imagination.

Abstract Trio, 1923

Adam and Little Eve, 1921

Like the previous work, Klee provides ‘meaningful’ titles to his works. What purpose would this have served for the viewing audience? Is it important for an artists to title their works if they want to be ‘successful’?

Twittering Machine, 1922

How does this work differ from the work that you have seen previously? Why do you think that Klee would have done so?

Dream City 1921, Watercolour and oil

Ancient Sound, Abstract on Black 1925, Oil on cardboard, 15 x 15 in.

Highway and Byways 1929, Oil on canvas, 32 x 26 in.

Klee, Paul, Ad Parnassum, 1932, Oil on canvas, 100 x 126 cm.

This work has been called Klee’s most successful painting. Argue a case as to why you agree or disagree considering the range of work that you have seen so far.