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Paul Klee
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When most people think of Paul Klee (1879-1940), they probably picture a poster or print of one of his most famous paintings, "Senecio," from 1922. In that small work, roughly 15 inches square, Klee melded the graphic impact of African tribal
When most people think of Paul Klee (1879-1940), they probably picture a poster or print of one of his most famous paintings, "Senecio," from 1922. In that small work, roughly 15 inches square, Klee melded the graphic impact of African tribal masks with elements of Cubism, which had been championed in the first decades of the 20th century by Pablo Picasso, George Braque, Robert Delaunay, and many others. The painting also revealed Klee's explorations of color, geometry, and line—in Klee's hands, these basic building blocks of fine art were used to create compositions of improbable humor and humanity.
Klee's output as an artist was actually much more diverse than the ubiquity of "Senecio" in today's contemporary culture at large would suggest. Sometimes his lines resembled abstract hieroglyphics or calligraphy, producing a style that's been emulated—or perhaps only admired—by everyone from Brice Marden to A.R. Penck. Other times, his lines would find one another on the picture plane to create stick figures, almond-shaped fish, or mosaic- and quilt-like landscapes.
Similarly, Klee's geometry and colors frequently teamed up to become everyday objects: when he added red to a circle it became a balloon, yellow produced a sun, and two perfectly round circles within a larger circle read instantly as a globe-shaped head. Within that head, triangles often doubled as misshapen noses and eyebrows, but elsewhere, they were pressed into service as a stick figure's dress.
Nor did Klee hew to one look or style during his relatively brief career. He was an accomplished draftsman, as his early drawings demonstrated, yet he was comfortable with Abstraction and Surrealism. He even experimented with Pointillism 40 years after that fleeting movement had come and gone, albeit a uniquely Klee form of Pointillism grounded in Constructivism rather than landscape painting and portraiture, as had been the practice of the great French painter George Seurat.
Klee's aesthetic restlessness appears to have been fueled, at least in part, by his geographic circumstances. As a resident of Munich, he met Wassily Kandinsky in 1910. Kandinsky would have an enormous impact on the younger Klee's work, and the two artists remained close friends until Klee's premature death in 1940. A few years after that catalytic introduction, a trip to Tunisia in 1914 forever changed Klee's perspective about color. Feeling humbled before nature, Klee resolved to try to get in touch with the world's magical and musical qualities, and paint instead of what his training as an artist had taught him.
Ironically, perhaps, Klee also did a lot teaching. That's why another major influence on his work was his decade as an instructor at Bauhaus. Colleagues (and influences) included his good friend Kandinsky, as well as Piet Mondrian. But the rise of the Nazis in Germany during the 1930s made that country untenable to Klee. Indeed, along with works by Kandinsky, Picasso, Mondrian, Marc Chagall, and Emil Nolde, 17 pieces by Klee were seized by the Nazis and exhibited in a 1937 exhibition titled "Degenerate Art." In retrospect, there is no higher honor.
Continue readingWhen most people think of Paul Klee (1879-1940), they probably picture a poster or print of one of his most famous paintings, "Senecio," from 1922. In that small work, roughly 15 inches square, Klee melded the graphic impact of African tribal masks with elements of Cubism, which had been championed in the first decades of the 20th century by Pablo Picasso, George Braque, Robert Delaunay, and many others. The painting also revealed Klee's explorations of color, geometry, and line—in Klee's hands, these basic building blocks of fine art were used to create compositions of improbable humor and humanity.
Klee's output as an artist was actually much more diverse than the ubiquity of "Senecio" in today's contemporary culture at large would suggest. Sometimes his lines resembled abstract hieroglyphics or calligraphy, producing a style that's been emulated—or perhaps only admired—by everyone from Brice Marden to A.R. Penck. Other times, his lines would find one another on the picture plane to create stick figures, almond-shaped fish, or mosaic- and quilt-like landscapes.
Similarly, Klee's geometry and colors frequently teamed up to become everyday objects: when he added red to a circle it became a balloon, yellow produced a sun, and two perfectly round circles within a larger circle read instantly as a globe-shaped head. Within that head, triangles often doubled as misshapen noses and eyebrows, but elsewhere, they were pressed into service as a stick figure's dress.
Nor did Klee hew to one look or style during his relatively brief career. He was an accomplished draftsman, as his early drawings demonstrated, yet he was comfortable with Abstraction and Surrealism. He even experimented with Pointillism 40 years after that fleeting movement had come and gone, albeit a uniquely Klee form of Pointillism grounded in Constructivism rather than landscape painting and portraiture, as had been the practice of the great French painter George Seurat.
Klee's aesthetic...
When most people think of Paul Klee (1879-1940), they probably picture a poster or print of one of his most famous paintings, "Senecio," from 1922. In that small work, roughly 15 inches square, Klee melded the graphic impact of African tribal masks with elements of Cubism, which had been championed in the first decades of the 20th century by Pablo Picasso, George Braque, Robert Delaunay, and many others. The painting also revealed Klee's explorations of color, geometry, and line—in Klee's hands, these basic building blocks of fine art were used to create compositions of improbable humor and humanity.
Klee's output as an artist was actually much more diverse than the ubiquity of "Senecio" in today's contemporary culture at large would suggest. Sometimes his lines resembled abstract hieroglyphics or calligraphy, producing a style that's been emulated—or perhaps only admired—by everyone from Brice Marden to A.R. Penck. Other times, his lines would find one another on the picture plane to create stick figures, almond-shaped fish, or mosaic- and quilt-like landscapes.
Similarly, Klee's geometry and colors frequently teamed up to become everyday objects: when he added red to a circle it became a balloon, yellow produced a sun, and two perfectly round circles within a larger circle read instantly as a globe-shaped head. Within that head, triangles often doubled as misshapen noses and eyebrows, but elsewhere, they were pressed into service as a stick figure's dress.
Nor did Klee hew to one look or style during his relatively brief career. He was an accomplished draftsman, as his early drawings demonstrated, yet he was comfortable with Abstraction and Surrealism. He even experimented with Pointillism 40 years after that fleeting movement had come and gone, albeit a uniquely Klee form of Pointillism grounded in Constructivism rather than landscape painting and portraiture, as had been the practice of the great French painter George Seurat.
Klee's aesthetic restlessness appears to have been fueled, at least in part, by his geographic circumstances. As a resident of Munich, he met Wassily Kandinsky in 1910. Kandinsky would have an enormous impact on the younger Klee's work, and the two artists remained close friends until Klee's premature death in 1940. A few years after that catalytic introduction, a trip to Tunisia in 1914 forever changed Klee's perspective about color. Feeling humbled before nature, Klee resolved to try to get in touch with the world's magical and musical qualities, and paint instead of what his training as an artist had taught him.
Ironically, perhaps, Klee also did a lot teaching. That's why another major influence on his work was his decade as an instructor at Bauhaus. Colleagues (and influences) included his good friend Kandinsky, as well as Piet Mondrian. But the rise of the Nazis in Germany during the 1930s made that country untenable to Klee. Indeed, along with works by Kandinsky, Picasso, Mondrian, Marc Chagall, and Emil Nolde, 17 pieces by Klee were seized by the Nazis and exhibited in a 1937 exhibition titled "Degenerate Art." In retrospect, there is no higher honor.
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