Paul Klee (1879 - 1940)

Précis

Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and grew up in Bern. His father was a German music teacher and his mother, Swiss, had trained as a singer. He was extremely talented in music, and by age eleven was already playing violin in the local orchestra. Rebelling against his parents' wishes that he pursue a career in music, he turned to art and moved to Munich to study. After befriending Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, Klee participated in the second Der Blaue Reiter exhibition, held in 1912 -- a show which received international attention. His star continued to rise rapidly, and in 1920, he joined the teaching staff at the Bauhaus, the newly-created school in Weimar, Germany. In 1931, he decided to move to Düsseldorf, where he only remained for two years. With German aryan racism on the rise, he took his family back to Bern, where he remained for the rest of his life.
     Klee was fascinated by color, although he was rather intimidated by it early in his artistic career. He worked in a wide range of styles over the course of his life, and was influenced by contemporary painters such as Delaunay and Kandinsky, as well as by "primitive" art -- i.e. non-European art from pre-modern cultures.

Death and Fire, o/c, 1940, ©1999 Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild Kunst, Bonn
Image courtesy of Mark Harden's Artchive

Excerpts from The Diaries of Paul Klee   (source)

[editor's note: Entry 66 was written while studying the figure at Knirr's school in Munich]

1898, Entry 66

"...I didn't in the least see (and I was right) how art could ever come from diligent studies of the nude. This insight, however, was an unconscious one."

1900, Entry 105

"I drew up the outline of a last will. In it I asked that all existing proofs of my artistic endeavors be destroyed. I well knew how meager and inconsequential it all was in comparison to the possibilities I sensed."

1901, Entry 136

"Thoughts about the art of portraiture. Some will not recognize the truthfulness of my mirror. Let them remember that I am not here to reflect the surface (this can be done by the photographic plate), but must penetrate inside. My mirror probes down to the heart. I write words on the forehead and around the corners of the mouth. My human faces are truer than the real ones."

[editor's note: regarding entry 140, Klee decided to turn to sculpture and approached Rümann to study under him. Rümann asked Klee to pass an entrance examination, which Klee protested.]

1901, Entry 140

"The seven prophetic words of Rümann: I. I shall let no one tell me what to do; II. You are not, as I see, a draftsman of the very first rank; III. This is drawn quite nicely; IV. This head, however, deserves the adjective 'bad'; V. Only those people are dispensed from a test who have modeled figures for years; VI. I myself once had to pass a test. (This is where I left.) VII. Good day, Herr Klee."

1901, Entry 142

"Often I said that I served Beauty by drawing her enemies (caricature, satire). But that is not enough. I must shape her directly with the full strength of my conviction. A distant, noble aim. Half asleep, I already set out on that path. When I am awake, it will have to be accomplished. Perhaps the road is longer than my life."

1901, Entry 152

"At times I fancied I knew how to draw, at times saw that I knew nothing. During the third winter I even realized that I probably never would learn how to paint. I thought of sculpture and started engraving. I have always been on good terms with music."

[editor's note: in late 1901, Klee embarked on a trip around Italy, stopping in Rome to look at the ancient masterpieces]

1901, Entry 294

"I have now reached the point where I can look over the great art of antiquity and its Renaissance. But, for myself, I cannot find any artistic connection with our own times. And to want to create something outside of one's own age strikes me as suspect."

1902, June 3, Entry 411/412

"My Italian trip now lies a month behind me. A strict review of my situation as a creative artist doesn't yield very encouraging results; I don't know why, but I continue nonetheless to be hopeful.
     Perhaps from the realization that at the root of my devastating self-criticism there is, after all, some spiritual development.
     Actually, the main thing now is not to paint precociously but to be or, at least, to become an individual. The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions. Not only to master life in practice, but to shape it meaningfully within me and to achieve as mature an attitude before it as possible. Obviously this isn't accomplished with a few general precepts but grows like Nature."

"As a beginner in this profession I shall not be able to please people; they will ask things of me that any clever young person with talent might easily come up with. My consolation is that the sincerity of my intention will always be more of a check to me than my lack of skill. Starting from an awareness of the prevalence of law, to broaden out until the horizon of thought once again becomes organized, and complexities, automatically falling into order, become simple again."

1903, Entry 485

"Serious color studies of nudes and heads. Only as practice and first training. Very strict determination of color values through water color. On top of it, some oils, simply for blending. The results are quite unattractive, little of importance to be hoped for here. The month of February is devoted to color."

1904, Entry 555

"Progress? Probably. But for the time being the perspective ahead is blocked. This is perhaps the proper time for a review, and perhaps it will even give me courage.
     Serious purpose dates from my third year of study in Munich. Then the great humiliation of the apprenticeship in Rome. Toward the end of that period I began to react against it by means of 'caricatures.' Hühnerwadel said in Florence: Projection of the third dimension. In Bern, I tried to achieve closer and closer contact with my own natural bent. But Italy still stuck in my digestive tract and for a long time I was somewhat constipated. What especially hindered my emancipation was my copying from nature, which I did sometimes consciously and sometimes involuntarily. When I saw this duality, I was at least able to produce a few legitimate works without direct study of nature. Every attempt to connect the two immediately produced things that were stylistically weaker. I wanted to take the bull by the horns and studied nature all the more, even anatomy. When shall I be able to bridge the gap?"

1904, Entry 583

"When looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed."

1905, June, Entry 632

"Granted: I am relatively satisfied with my etchings, but I cannot go on in this way, for I am not a specialist. Nevertheless, for the time being, I won't drip it at all, but rather find the logical way out. A hope tempted me the other day as I drew with the needle on a blackened pane of glass. A playful experiment on porcelain had given me the idea. Thus: the instrument is no longer the black line, but the white one. That background is not light, but night. Energy illuminates: just as it does in nature. This is probably a transition from the graphic to the pictorial stage. But I won't paint, out of modesty and cautiousness!
     So now the motto is, 'Let there be light.' Thus I glide slowly over into the new world of tonalities."

1905, Entry 633

"Working with white corresponds to painting in nature. As I now leave the very specific and strictly graphic realm of black energy, I am quite aware that I am entering a vast region where no proper orientation is at first possible. This terra incognita is mysterious indeed.
     But the step forward must be taken. Perhaps the hand of mother nature, now come much closer, will help me over many a rough spot.
     The step forward must be taken, because it has long been preparing itself in many aspects of my work. For these few etchings are far from representing the entire production of the past two years. A great number of sketches did not lend themselves to being fitted into that strict abstractionist affirmation of form. They lie in wait.
     I am ripe for the step forward.
     I begin logically with chaos, it is the most natural start. In so doing, I feel at rest because I may, at first, be chaos myself. This is the maternal hand. Before the white surface, on the contrary, I would often stand trembling and hesitant. But then I gave myself a conscious jolt and squeezed my way into the narrow confines of linear representation. Then everything went quite well, for I had trained hard and thoroughly in that field.
     It's convenient to have the right to be chaos to start with.
     Nor are the first signs of light on this black ground as vehemently compelling as black energies on a white ground. One is thus able to proceed in a much more leisurely way. The original blackness works as an opposing force and begins where nature leaves off. The effect is that of rays of the rising sun streaking the sides of a valley, with the rays gradually penetrating deeper as the sun ascends. The last dark corners are merely a residue.
     All this stimulates certain ideas about technique: woodcut and lithography. Perhaps the compensation for many bitter hours is approaching."

1905, Entry 670

"The subject in itself is certaintly dead. What counts are the impressions before the subject. The growing vogue of erotic subjects is not exclusively French, but rather a preference for subjects which are especially likely to provoke impressions.
     As a result, the outer form becomes extremely variable and moves along the entire scale of temperaments. According to the mobility of the index finger, one might say in this case.
     The technical means of representation vary accordingly.
     The school of the old masters has certainly seen its day."