klee: emptying the void

Paul Klee. First thing to hang your hat on is that his great technical skill and intellectualism were peripheral to his art. His art, for the most part, remains a mystery to be solved by most, a sophisticated harmony battling disharmony within a painting vocabulary superficially culled from the art of children and isolated primitives that defies any known formula. Ultimately, the enjoyment of Klee’s work beckons the non-intellectual in us…

---Demon as Pirate (Daemon als Pirat) Paul Klee, Swiss, 1879 - 1940 Date: 1926 Medium: Opaque watercolor and watercolor on paper Dimensions: Sheet (irregular): 11 3/4 x 17 inches (29.8 x 43.2 cm)---click image for source...

—Demon as Pirate
(Daemon als Pirat)
Paul Klee, Swiss, 1879 – 1940
Date:
1926
Medium:
Opaque watercolor and watercolor on paper
Dimensions:
Sheet (irregular): 11 3/4 x 17 inches (29.8 x 43.2 cm)—click image for source…

In Klee’s picture, Demon as Pirate there is much that can be pointed out in explanation such as the pure line pattern of the two boats and the demon connects the picture with certain oriental traditions. The composition can be gone into at some length, but in the long run, no explanation of Demon as Pirate is going to explain the most important things about it. It is like imagining if Jackson PollockĀ  being a highly trained painter, technically advanced and an esthetician of great subtlety.

Klee’s picture is a vision and a dream, and our response to it depends finally upon associations we bring to it from deep within ourselves, associations that we might be at a loss to define. Imagine Klee being an inspiration for Viktor Frankl’s existential therapy and art that presages a search for meaning under sordid conditions in which the child-like survives.

Demon as Pirate has only the most tenuous relationship with the world we know and depends upon associations that are personal and inward, revolving around the struggle for existence through a cultivation whereby intangibles can respond to the challenges of emptiness and suffering both real, potential and imagined. Klee’s is a visionary art, fantastic, and intriguing that provides special rewards to those juggling the narrative of freedom and responsibility in a world fraught with peril.

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