Paul Klee– Ad Marginem, ca 1930
First, he does not attach such intense importance to natural form as do so many realist critics, because, for him, these final forms are not the real stuff of the process of natural creation. For he places more value on the powers which do the forming than on the final forms themselves.
He is, perhaps unintentionally, a philosopher, and if he does not, with the optimists, hold this world to be the best of all possible worlds, nor to be so bad that it is unfit to serve as a model, yet he says:
‘In its present shape it is not the only possible world.’
Thus he surveys with penetrating eye the finished forms which nature places before him.
The deeper he looks, the more readily he can extend his view from the present to the past, the more deeply he is impressed by the one essential image of creation itself, as Genesis, rather than by the image of nature, the finished product.
— Paul Klee, On Modern Art
This excerpt from On Modern Art, the 1924 treatise from the great Swiss artist Paul Klee.
For me, he was a big influence not only for his distinctive works but for his attitude and his views on art that he expressed so well in his writings. His use of color also influenced me. I always think of his work in terms of the color– sometimes muted yet intense and always having a melodic harmony to it.
It always feels like music to me. Like Klee, I often equate the visual with music.
I like his idea that the world is in the process of creation, of Genesis, and that it is not a final form. It allows for visionary work, for imagining other present worlds that extend beyond our perception because, as he writes, “In its present shape it is not the only possible world.”
And to me, that is an exciting proposition.
This is a reworked version of a post that originally ran in 2015. I needed a little kick of Klee this morning.
Paul Klee- Fish Magic 1925
Paul Klee,, Blossoms in the Night
Paul Klee- Redgreen and Violets-Yellow Rhythms 1920
Paul Klee Bird Garden 1924
Southern Gardens- Paul Klee
Redtree Times 