Paul Klee

"Starting from active and passive lines and planes he arrived at perspective and cloudlike spaces, dividual and individual structures, symbols such as arrows and letters and others of a higher order that hint at religious spheres" (Will Grohmann, Paul Klee, New York, 1970, p. 161)

Grohmann's perceptive take on Klee's early 1930s work is perfectly illustrated in the present work, "...Gilt auch für Plantzen". The eye to the centre right is what Grohmann refers to as a symbol of a 'higher order' and stems from Klee's fascination with the colours and cultures of North Africa where he had travelled with August Macke twenty years earlier (Fig. 1). There is an aspect of the surreal to many of his earlier studies and the present work is a rare example of a completed pastel from a period of complete artistic freedom, which Klee enjoyed while working at the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1932.

The vibrancy of the composition, with its swirling lines and harmonious colours hints at an artist unconcerned by the horrific ordeals his adopted country would see in the forthcoming fifteen years, which caused Klee to settle back in Switzerland in the winter of 1933. "...Gilt auch für Plantzen"  is a 1932 work unhindered by outside, political tensions, free from the concerns of anything but the innermost artistic ideals of the artist.

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Fig 1. Paul Klee (in the background) with August Macke (on a donkey) in Tunis, April 1914