Klee. Donald Wigal

Beardsley (1872–1898), William Blake (1757–1827), and Francisco de Goya (1746–1828). Klee especially commented on the wit and eccentric themes of Beardsley, the mysticism of Blake, and the dark pondering of the last period of Goya’s work.

      Park Landscape

      1920

      Watercolour and ink on paper on cardboard, 14.5 × 29 cm.

      Private collection.

      However, it would seem the works of Goya, mainly etchings and pen-and-ink drawings, and the works of James Ensor (1860–1949) more obviously influenced Klee’s early output. Goya and Ensor shared convictions about Modernism and Expressionism. Goya also showed Post-impressionistic values, while the Belgian artist Ensor displayed positive convictions about Symbolism and Primitivism. These latter two influences would especially leave their mark on Klee, while all three artists shared and contributed greatly to Modernism.

      Where?

      1920

      Oil and pencil on paper on cardboard, 23.5 × 29.5 cm.

      Collezione Città di Locarno, Pinacoteca Casa Rusca, Locarno.

      Klee discovered for himself Ensor’s use of line as an expressionist graphic artist. It was a contrast to Klee’s representational graphic work. But even Klee’s earlier works were marked by his distinctive quirks of fantasy, without Ensor’s bitterness and obsessive search for evil as seen in his masterpiece Christ’s Entry into Brussels (1888).

      Three Flowers

      1920

      Oil on cardboard primed, verso oil painted, 19.5 × 15 cm.

      LK donation, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern.

      During this preparatory time in his young life, Klee also visited Paris in 1905, where he studied the works of Odilon Redon (1840–1916). It was in Redon’s independent lines that Klee found inspiration, not in his following of the classical lines of the Romanticism of Eugène Delacroix or the Classicism of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875). Rather, it was the surrealism and expressionism of Redon that made him a forerunner of Marc Chagall (1887–1985) and Joan Miró (1893–1983) as well as Klee. It might then be that the impact of Klee is most obviously also seen in the works of Miró.

      Railway Station L112, 14 km

      1920

      Watercolour and Indian ink on paper on cardboard, 12.3 × 21.8 cm.

      Hermann and Margrit Rupf Foundation, Kunstmuseum, Bern.

      At age twenty-seven, Klee married the classical pianist Lily Stumpf, the daughter of a Munich physician. The couple settled in Munich, where avant-garde art was flourishing. During their first ten years of marriage, Lily Klee gave piano lessons to pay the household expenses. In 1907, the Klees had their son Felix.

      In 1909–1910, Klee exhibited for the first time. He showed fifty-six works, mostly etchings of bizarre subjects. Later the artist admitted these early works were pessimistic and even decadent.

      Angel Serving a Light Breakfast

      1920

      Lithograph, 19.8 × 14.6 cm.

      Sprengel Museum Hannover, Hanover.

      Between 1908 and 1911, Klee saw the Munich exhibitions of Paul Cezanne (1839–1906), Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), and Henri Matisse (1869–1954). While Klee did not imitate these masters, his work did show personal insights into their work. He began to especially notice Cubism, which had roots dating back to 1901 as pioneered by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) and Georges Braque (1882–1963). Both were indebted to Cezanne’s use of multiple points of view within a single painting. As seen even in the small selection of Klee’s works reproduced in this book, an aspect of Cubism continued to influence Klee thereafter.

      Architectural Plan for a Garden

      1920

      Watercolour and oil on canvas on cardboard, 36.5 × 42.9 cm.

      Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern.

      In 1911, Klee had a one-man show in Munich. Even though it was not well displayed in the corridors of the Thannhauser Gallery, Kandinsky and other artists of the Der Blaue Reiter noticed it. Klee soon met other artists of similar aesthetic philosophies, including Jean (also known as Hans) Arp (1886–1966). But it was Kandinsky with whom he began a long friendship and collaboration. After developing friendships with Kandinsky and fellow artist August Macke (1887–1914), Klee became interested in and then joined their expressionist group, Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Horseman, or The Blue Rider).

      Camel in Rhythmic Wooded Landscape

      1920

      Oil on gauze coated with chalk, 48 × 42 cm.

      K 20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen, Düsseldorf.

      The group took its name from one of the works in the 1911 series of canvases, “Three Red Horses” by Franz Marc (1880–1916). In the same year as Klee’s one-man show, Franz Marc presented his famous coloured horses series. In these and other works, Marc used pure complementary colours (red-green, blue-orange, yellow-violet). The name of the group indicates that its focus was on the use of colour for expressive purposes. Kandinsky and Marc, and then later Klee and his friend Macke, the true colourist in the group, headed the group.

      Transparent and Perspective

      1921

      Watercolour, ink on paper on paper, on cardboard 23.4 × 25.9 cm.

      Private collection.

      Choir and Landscape

      1921

      Gouache and pencil on oil on paper on cardboard, 35 × 31 cm.

      Long term loan of a private collection, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern.

      Also in 1911, Klee created his illustrations for a German edition of Candide, the classic novel by the French author Voltaire (1694–1778). Klee rendered Voltaire’s characters as insect-like beings, giving them human postures and expressions. The illustrations seemed as if a child artist had tried to read the sophisticated work, but fancied his own story line. In the fantasy world of Klee the surreal was typical, and at its most horrific, retained sensitivity and wit. See for example Luftschloss (1922), a title that means “castle in the air” or “chateau en Espagne.” In it Klee built a vertical structure that is somehow transparent and light. Depth is implied, but gravity seems ineffective. Like Klee’s beloved myths and fantasies in general, its beauty is partly built on its freedom from a fixed foundation.

      Bird Islands

      1921

      Oil transfer and watercolour on paper on cardboard, 28 × 43.8 cm.

      Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern.

      In 1912, Klee wrote an article for the journal Die Alpen about the move to reform art. The often-quoted passage from the article is surely hyperbole: