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That the Swiss painter Paul Klee (1879 – 1940) isn’t more widely known and immediately recognized is somewhat shocking considering his vast output of creative work: by the time of his death he had created over 10,000 works in various mediums including: oil paint, water-color, pen and ink drawings, lithographic prints, chalk, and etc. (Baker 169) That Klee remains somewhat obscure is also puzzling when one considers his many and varied links to other popular artists within a variety of modern artistic movements of the early 20th century and his anticipation of styles taken up by artists in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. His work should be known, and loved, and treasured, not only because of his mastery of a diverse range of styles and techniques, but also because of his restless investigation into the human condition and his preservation of a childlike spirit in spite of human depravity and social crises.
Paul Klee was influenced by the artists before him
and by those working around him, yet he never became inextricably linked to any
particular style or artistic movement. He developed his own artistic language,
borrowing and reinterpreting the styles and methods of many others, but always
using them to his own design. The influence of artistic movements such as cubism,
fauvism, expressionism, futurism, dada, and surrealism is easily seen in Klee’s
vast output of work. He is frequently compared with Picasso, Chagall, and
Mondrian, among others, but the comparison is always slight because Klee never
duplicated anyone else’s stylings. Even the painting of Wassily Kandinsky, with
whom he taught at the Bauhaus art school in Germany, and with whom he founded Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group
of artists, was similar but only in some small way; the differences were
notable. (Ponente 16)
And if the influences on Klee’s work were many and
varied, so too are the artists that his work has influenced in the years since his
death and whose styles he anticipated. One can project the shimmering
rectangles of color painted by Mark Rothko from Klee’s The Closet (1940, Colored paste on cardboard), and the thick-lined
graffiti style figures of Keith Haring from Klee’s Project (1938, Colored paste on burlap). It can be said that, while there was little
in Klee that resembled the “action paintings” of artists like Jackson Pollock,
Klee’s theories and explorations set the stage for abstract expressionism.
(Ponente 109 -110)
Klee’s work is often described as having a “charming
innocence and freshness of outlook,” (Waldberg 52), as a “personal, fairy-tale
world of fantasy and invention” (Baker 168). But to say that his art is “childlike” is to
ignore the deep maturity of his work, even in his early years. It is true that
there is much whimsy and wonder in the work of Paul Klee, but there is also
meditation on the fullness of the human condition, and that includes
experiences of pain, and depression, and misery. In addition to his childlike
playfulness his work demonstrates a “tendency to pessimism and satire”
(Grohmann 11). His work is at times playful and sardonic, romantic and bizarre.
In an essay written in 1920 (while he was serving
in the German army during World War I), Klee wrote, “Art does not reproduce the
visible, but makes visible” (quoted in Ponente 56). His painting was more than
just a replication of shapes and forms and colors from nature on canvas; it was
an attempt to see into the deeper realities of the universe.
The mysterious figure in Klee’s painting stares
out at us, as if inviting us to join the artist in this quest to find the
center of all things. She (the figure is vaguely feminine in its curves) cups
in her hand a glowing navel, radiating with a sort of divine light – a light
from which all knowledge spreads.
For Klee, who suffered in the last years of his
life from scleroderma (an autoimmune tissue disorder that causes a thickening
and hardening of the skin and of blood vessels and internal organs) the Omphalo
(Greek for “navel”) was a symbol of life and death. He dealt continually with
images of life as well as images of fear and death in his last years-not just
his own personal fears and his own imminent death, but those of the world
around him as well.
In 1933 Klee and his wife fled from Germany, back
to his native Switzerland, to escape persecution from the Nazi party. Klee,
along with many other modern artists in Germany, was labeled a “degenerate”
artists by the Nazis, and accused of being a “Jew” and a “foreigner.” (Grohmann
31) But, he said, “It seems to me unworthy to answer back to such crude taunts.
Even if it were true that I am a Jew or that I come from Galicia, this would
not change by one iota the value of my personality or my achievement” (Letter
dated April 6th, 1933-quoted in Grohman 31).
Despite the horrors of war, the death of close
friends, and the pain of his illness, Klee did not consider death to be the
end. The epithet on his tombstone (which he composed himself) reads:
I cannot be grasped in the here and now
For I live just as well with the dead
as with the unborn
Somewhat closer to the heart of creation than usual
But far from close enough
For I live just as well with the dead
as with the unborn
Somewhat closer to the heart of creation than usual
But far from close enough
Baker, Samm Sinclair, and Natalie Baker. Introduction to Art: A Guide to the Understanding
and
Enjoyment of Great Masterpieces. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated.
1971.
Grohmann, Will. Paul Klee: Masters of Art. Trans. Norbert Guterman. New York:
Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated. 1985.
Ponente, Nello. Klee: Biographical and Critical Study. Trans. James Emmons. Skira. 1960.
Waldberg, Patrick. Surrealism. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. Skira. 1962.
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