One of Taschen's 'basics' series - if the current isolation continues, I suspect I'll be reading more art monographs over the next few months.
The context of Klee's life was interesting - the way his 1914 trip to Tunisia opened up his understanding of colour and abstraction, the period teaching at the Bauhaus, the impact of the Second World War in forcing him from Germany to his birth country of Switzerland and how his art was received in both countries (despite not himself being Jewish). But I got more out of the sections on his theories of art, which illuminated not only why he painted and drew as he did, but also - at least in some measure - why his art has the effect that it does on me (eg on this encounter in Lucerne). Not exactly in the same vein, but still, I was moved by "Separation in the Evening" (1922), above, after reading Partsch's description: "The title of this completely abstract watercolour conjures up the evening dusk. The horizon can still be seen, the sky has already turned lilac, there is only a thin strip of light shining upon the earth before it finally disappears."
"Now we make the reality of visible things apparent and in doing so express the belief that, in relation to the world as a whole, the visible is only an isolated example and that other truths are latently in the majority. Things appear in their extended and manifold sense, often seemingly contradicting yesterday's experiences. The aim is to reveal the fundamental idea behind the coincidental." - Klee, 1920
"Art does not reproduce what is visible, but what makes things visible. The nature of graphic art easily makes abstraction tempting, and rightly so. The imaginary character is both blurred and has a fairy-tale quality about it and at the same time expresses itself very precisely. The purer the graphic work, ie the greater the importance attached to the formal elements used in the graphic representation, the more inadequate the preparation for the realistic representation of visible things." - Klee, 1920
The context of Klee's life was interesting - the way his 1914 trip to Tunisia opened up his understanding of colour and abstraction, the period teaching at the Bauhaus, the impact of the Second World War in forcing him from Germany to his birth country of Switzerland and how his art was received in both countries (despite not himself being Jewish). But I got more out of the sections on his theories of art, which illuminated not only why he painted and drew as he did, but also - at least in some measure - why his art has the effect that it does on me (eg on this encounter in Lucerne). Not exactly in the same vein, but still, I was moved by "Separation in the Evening" (1922), above, after reading Partsch's description: "The title of this completely abstract watercolour conjures up the evening dusk. The horizon can still be seen, the sky has already turned lilac, there is only a thin strip of light shining upon the earth before it finally disappears."
"The Goldfish" (1925)
"Now we make the reality of visible things apparent and in doing so express the belief that, in relation to the world as a whole, the visible is only an isolated example and that other truths are latently in the majority. Things appear in their extended and manifold sense, often seemingly contradicting yesterday's experiences. The aim is to reveal the fundamental idea behind the coincidental." - Klee, 1920
"Ad Parnassum" (1932) - the seat of Apollo and the Muses
"Art does not reproduce what is visible, but what makes things visible. The nature of graphic art easily makes abstraction tempting, and rightly so. The imaginary character is both blurred and has a fairy-tale quality about it and at the same time expresses itself very precisely. The purer the graphic work, ie the greater the importance attached to the formal elements used in the graphic representation, the more inadequate the preparation for the realistic representation of visible things." - Klee, 1920
"Individualized Altimetry of Layers" (1930)
"Insula dulcamara" (1938) - incorporating the Latin words 'dulcis' (sweet) and 'amarus' (bitter), hence 'bittersweet island'
