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WORLDS TOP ARTISTS
For top creative practitioners, see:
Best Artists of All Time.
For the greatest view painters, see:
Best Landcape Artists.
For the greatest still life art, see:
Best Still Life Painters.
For the greatest portraitists
see: Best Portrait Artists.
For the greatest genre-painting, see:
Best Genre Painters.
For the top allegorical painting,
see: Best History Painters.
WORLD'S BEST ART
For a list of the best examples of
Fine Art Painting, by the
world's top artists, see below:
Greatest Paintings Ever
Oils, watercolours, mixed
media from 1300-present.
Oil Painting
History, styles and development.
WHAT IS ART?
For an explanation of the
aesthetic issues surrounding
the creative visual arts, see:
Art Definition, Meaning
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Early Life
Klee was born near Bern in Switzerland in 1879. His father was a music
teacher and his mother had trained to be a singer. In his early years
he studied and showed talent for both music and art, but in his teens
declared his preference for the visual arts. By 16, his drawings already
showed considerable draftsman skills. He barely passed his school exams,
preferring to sketch caricatures in his school books rather than study.
In 1898, at the age of 19, he went to study
at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. At first he showed little skill
in mastering the art of colour,
to the extent that he thought he should never learn to paint. A few years
later, he graduated with a degree in Fine Art, and went to Italy for a
few months to study Renaissance art,
noting sadly in his diary: "a long struggle lies in store for me
in this field of colour.” He returned to Bern and lived with his
parents for the next few years, attending the odd art class. He began
to experiment with various mediums - notably printmaking and graphic art,
in which he was strongly influenced by both William
Blake (1757-1827) and Aubrey Beardsley
(1872-98) - and in 1905 produced over 50 etchings,
including Portrait of my Father (1905) - created by using a needle
to scratch an image on a blackened pane of glass.
Art Career
In 1906 he married a Bavarian pianist Lily Stumpf and together they moved
to Munich. While Lily worked playing music, Klee tended the house and
worked on his art in the kitchen. Progress for the next 5 years was slow
and an attempt at magazine illustration failed. However by 1910, things
had improved. He was given his first solo show and met other artists who
were to influence him greatly - Wassily
Kandinsky and Franz Marc. Together they formed the German
Expressionism group known as the Der Blaue Reiter. Its members
were influenced by Cubism, but they also emphasized the process of painting
with vibrant brushstrokes and dramatic colour. They tried to reflect their
inner impulses and feelings to provoke a reaction in their audience. They
also believed that sources like children's drawings, oriental paintings
and African sculpture could be the root for the rebirth of art. Kandinsky
became a mentor of sorts to Klee, although Klee admitted in later years
that he found Kandinsky's works 'bizarre'.
Ecole de Paris
In 1912 Klee travelled to Paris and was
exposed to the new works of Cubism and early abstract art - particularly
being impressed by the works of the neo-Cubist Robert
Delaunay. In Delaunay's paintings he saw that Cubism did not have
to be static and that it was possible to create a completely separate
and independent picture with its own abstract formality, its own life.
In other words a painting could be both natural and abstract at the same
time. He also came into contact with the Futurist movement and was particularly
impressed with the masterpiece Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel
Duchamp.
For the next two years Klee began to experiment with bold colours, completing
a number of landscape watercolour
paintings, including In the Quarry (1913) and Houses near
the Gravel Pit (1913). As he learned more about colour he strove to
incorporate it's attributes into drawings. The breakthrough came in 1914
when he met August Macke. Impressed by Macke's use of colour, he finally
felt that "colour has taken possession of me; no longer do I have
to chase after it". He painted his first piece of abstract
art - In the Style of Kairouan (1914), a work consisting of
coloured rectangles and circles - when he returned from Paris. The coloured
rectangle was to become one of his fundamental building blocks to a painting,
laying them side by side, or slightly overlapping.
In 1914 the First World War broke out, and news soon reached him of the
death of his friends Macke and Franz Marc. Klee created several pen
and ink drawings on war themes including Death for the Idea
(1915). In 1916 he joined the army but spent his time painting camouflage
on airplanes, and so survived the war.
Artistic Recognition
In 1919 Klee received a 3 year contract
from an art dealer, Hans Goltz, whose gallery was able to give him the
sort of exposure he needed. Success was quick and by 1920 Klee was in
a position to hold his first retrospective with over 300 works. At the
same time he taught art at the short-lived Bauhaus
art and design school. It was here he met fellow teacher Wassily Kandinsky.
In 1923 the two, along with Lyonel Feininger and Alexei von Jawlensky
formed the Blue Four (Die Blaue Vier) and began exhibiting internationally
together. The same year Klee had a successful exhibition in Paris and
became popular with the Surrealists. Paintings from this period include
The Golden Fish (1925) in oil and watercolour, which demonstrates
a masterful study of colour. The gold warmth of the fish glows undimmed
by the deep blue of the surrounding sea. There have been many interpretations
of the painting, including one that says the painting symbolises a love
that cannot be extinguished.
In 1933, denounced by the Nazis as a Galician Jew, Klee and his family
were hounded out of his job and home. They moved to Switzerland later
that year. His self-portrait Struck from the List (1933) commemorates
his troubles. Just before his move, he created some 500 works, but the
following year, in Switzerland, this was reduced to a mere 25. It was
about this time that he started showing symptoms of scleroderma, which
was only diagnosed by autopsy a few years later.
Degenerate Artist
In 1937, his art together with that of
fellow painters Otto Dix (1891-1969), Max
Beckmann (1884-1950), Ernst Ludwig
Kirchner (1880-1938), Oskar Kokoschka
(1886-1980), Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948),
and Marc Chagall (1887-1985), was labelled
"Degenerate Art" (Entartete Kunst) by the Nazi government. Over
the next few years he would go through periods of activity and quieter
times, depending on his health. He died in Switzerland in 1940 at the
age of 61.
Klee's Style of Art
His earlier works were generally small
in scale, but they became larger in later years. He displayed a wide variety
of palette colour - from primary colours to monochromatic. There is a
childlike quality to his work. He created a whole series of new worlds,
usually happy cheerful ones with shimmering fish, mysterious plants and
dancing matchstick figures. The titles of his works often allude to his
love of music and his desire to make his paintings 'sing' through use
of colour and line. His painting The Twittering Machine (1922),
shows four little matchstick, bird-like, fishermen who are perched on
a handle, which looks like it needs to be cranked to make them sing.
The paintings from his last few years are
not only bigger, but also bolder. They have black borders and the paint
is applied more thickly. Many of these paintings reflect death and the
Nazi regime but they also have great vitality and energy. Revolution
of the Viaduct (1937) is possibly one of his most famous works; it
was inspired by the turmoil around him. The arches, as they seem to march
toward the observer can be considered a challenge to Nazism, they trample
something, maybe the repressive regime.
At the time of his death he had produced over 9,000 works. At the time
his painting was considered too revolutionary even for modern
art, and his tombstone bears the words "I cannot be grasped in
the here and now, for my dwelling place is much among the dead, as the
yet unborn, slightly closer to the heart of creation than usual, but still
not close enough". Klee's work in colour influenced a generation
of artists and printmakers. He was a quiet man, who spoke very little.
He didn't have to explain himself - his work, the ultimate self-expression,
spoke for him.
List of Major Works by Paul Klee
Paintings by Paul Klee can be seen in many
of the best art museums throughout the
world. His major works include:
- On a Motif from Hamamet, Kunstmuseum
Basel, Basel (1914)
- Cosmic Composition, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
(1919)
- Nocturnal Festivity, The Solomon R. Guggebheim Museum, New York (1921)
- A Young Lady's Adventure, Tate Gallery, London (1921)
- Crystal Gradation, Kunstmuseum Basel (1921)
- Revolving House, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid (1921)
- Red Balloon, The Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York (1922)
- Senecio, Kunstmuseum Basel (1922)
- Puppet Theater, Kunstmuseum, Bern (1923)
- Carnival in the Mountains, Kunstmuseum, Bern (1924)
- Botanical Theater, Private collection (1924/34)
- Fish Magic, The Philadelphia Museum of Art (1925)
- Gate in the Garden, Kunstmuseum, Bern (1926)
- Reconstructin, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (1926)
- Around the Fish, The Museum of Modern Arts, New York (1926)
- Attrappen (Omega 5), Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid (1927)
- Little Jester in a Trance, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (1929)
- Monument in Fertile Country, Kunstmuseum, Bern (1929)
- Fire in the Evening, The Museum of Modern Arts, New York (1929)
- Ad Marginem, Kunstmuseum Basel (1930)
- Fruits on Red, Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich (1930)
- Conqueror, Kunstmuseum, Bern (1930)
- Individualized Altimetry of Stripes, Kunstmuseum, Bern (1930)
- Siblings, Private collection (1930)
- Polyphony, Kunstmuseum, Basel (1932)
- Ad Parnassum, Kunstmuseum, Bern (1932)
- The Future Man, Kunstmuseum, Bern (1933)
- Drawn One, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (1935)
- Contemplating, Galerie Beyeler, Basel (1938)
- Heroic Roses, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (1938)
- Red Waistcoat, Kunstzammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (1938)
- Woman in Peasant Dress, Kunstmuseum, Bern (1940)
- Death and Fire, Kunstmuseum, Bern (1940)
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