Paul Klee - Delphi Collected Works of Paul Klee

Paul Klee (1879-1940) Contents Delphi Classics 2015 Version 1 Masters of Art Series Paul Klee By Delphi Classics, 2015

Mnchenbuchsee, a town in the canton of Bern, Switzerland Klees birthplace Klee as a child, 1892 THE HIGHLIGHTS In this section, a sample of Klees most celebrated works is provided, with concise introductions, special detail reproductions and additional biographical images. In January 1911, Klee met Alfred Kubin in Munich, who well received the young artists graphic work and became one of his first significant collectors. Klee met, through Kubin, the art critic Wilhelm Hausenstein in 1911. In autumn he was introduced to August Macke and Wassily Kandinsky and in the winter he joined the editorial team of the almanac Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) , founded by Franz Marc and Kandinsky. On meeting Kandinsky, Klee recorded, I came to feel a deep trust in him. He is somebody, and has an exceptionally beautiful and lucid mind.

Klee became in a few months one of the most important and independent members of the Der Blaue Reiter, though he was not yet fully integrated. The association of the group opened Klees mind to modern theories of colour. His travels to Paris in 1912 also exposed him to the ferment of Cubism and the pioneering examples of pure painting, an early term for abstract art. The use of bold colour by Robert Delaunay, Paul Czanne and Maurice de Vlaminck also inspired him. Klee began working out his own developments in colour, using pale watercolours and primitive landscapes, featuring blocks of colour with limited overlap. He acknowledged that a long struggle lies in store for me in this field of colour in order to reach a distant noble aim.

Soon, he discovered the style which connects drawing and the realm of colour. Klees artistic breakthrough came in 1914 when he briefly visited Tunisia with August Macke and Louis Moilliet. Intensely impressed by the quality of the light there, he wrote, Colour has taken possession of me; no longer do I have to chase after it, I know that it has hold of me forever... Colour and I are one. I am a painter. With that realisation, faithfulness to nature faded in importance.

Instead, Klee began to delve into the cool romanticism of abstraction. In gaining a second artistic vocabulary, Klee was now able to add colour to his artistic abilities, producing a series of operatic paintings. In these works, Klee combined various coloured blocks to create a harmony analogous to a musical composition. His selection of a particular palette would emulate a musical key. Sometimes he used complementary pairs of colours and at other times dissonant colours, again reflecting his connection with musicality. The paintings implement the strong light and colour stimulus of the North African countryside, similar to Czanne and Robert Delaunays cubistic form concepts.

The aim was not to imitate nature, but to create compositions analogous to natures formative principle, as in the works In den Husern von Saint-Germain (In the Houses of Saint-Germain) and Straencaf (Streetcaf). The 1914 watercolour painting Red and White Domes , held in Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, was produced during this incredibly productive time. Less attention is paid to narrative, than to colour, concentrating on the raw power of paint. Klees works at this time demonstrate how colour to a painter possesses the same importance that sound would have for a musician. The canvas is responsive to the North African lighting and the local architecture based on cube and dome shapes. Detail Detail Detail Windows by Robert Delaunay, 1912 serving as inspiration for Klee, this radical depiction of the Parisian skyline is similarly echoed in Red and White Domes Members of the Blue Rider group on the balcony of Kandinskys apartment in Munich, from left to right: Maria Marc, Franz Marc, Bernhard Koehler Sr., Wassily Kandinsky (seated), Heinrich Campendonk and Thomas von Hartmann. Klee in 1911

Klee was conscripted as a Landsturmsoldat (soldier of the reserve forces in Prussia or Imperial Germany) on 5 March 1916. Klee in 1911 Klee was conscripted as a Landsturmsoldat (soldier of the reserve forces in Prussia or Imperial Germany) on 5 March 1916.

The deaths of his friends August Macke and Franz Marc in battle would have a serious effect upon the artist. Venting his distress, he created several pen and ink lithographs on war themes including Death for the Idea (1915). After completing his military training course, he was committed as a soldier behind the front. Klee moved on 20 August to the aircraft maintenance company in Oberschleissheim, executing skilled manual work, such as restoring aircraft camouflage and accompanying aircraft transports. On 17 January 1917, he was transferred to the Royal Bavarian flying school in Gersthofen to work as a clerk for the treasurer until the end of the war. This allowed him to stay in a small room outside of the barrack block, where he could paint.

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