Paul Klee citations (129 citations)

Quote (1908), # 816, in The Diaries of Paul Klee; University of California Press, 1964; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee - Part Three' : Klee as a Secessionist and a Neo-Impressionist Artist http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev.html
1903 - 1910

“One eye sees, the other feels.”

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Paul Klee

“A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller.”

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Paul Klee

“Nature can afford to be prodigal in everything, the artist must be frugal down to the last detail.”

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Paul Klee

Diary entry (Munich, 1909), # 857, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918; University of California Press, 1968, p. 236
1903 - 1910
Contexte: Nature can afford to be prodigal in everything, the artist must be frugal down to the last detail.
Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn.

“The main thing now is not to paint precociously but to be, or at least become, an individual.”

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Paul Klee

Diary entry (3 June 1902), # 411, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918; University of California Press, 1968
1895 - 1902
Contexte: The main thing now is not to paint precociously but to be, or at least become, an individual. The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.

“My mirror probes down to the heart. I write words on the forehead and around the corners of the mouth. My human faces are truer than the real ones.”

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Paul Klee

Diary entry (Munich, 1901), # 136, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918; University of California Press, 1968, p. 48
1895 - 1902

“Things appear to assume a broader and more diversified meaning, often seemingly contradicting the rational experience of yesterday. There is a striving to emphasize the essential character of the accidental.”

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Paul Klee

Section V
1916 - 1920, Creative Credo (1920)
Contexte: Formerly we used to represent things visible on earth, things we either liked to look at or would have liked to see. Today we reveal the reality that is behind visible things, thus expressing the belief that the visible world is merely an isolated case in relation to the universe and that there are many more other, latent realities. Things appear to assume a broader and more diversified meaning, often seemingly contradicting the rational experience of yesterday. There is a striving to emphasize the essential character of the accidental.

“A line is a dot that went for a walk.”

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Paul Klee

“Art does not reproduce what we see. It makes us see.”

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Paul Klee

Section I

(de) Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern macht sichtbar.
1916 - 1920, Creative Credo (1920)
Variante: Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.

“The shaping of form is weak in energy in comparison with the determining of form. The final consequence of both ways of forming is form. From the ways to the end. From activity to the accomplished. From the genuinely living thing to the objective thing. In the beginning the male speciality, the energetic stimulus. Then the fleshly growth of the egg. Or: first the bright flash of lightning, then the raining cloud. When is the spirit at its purest? In the beginning. Here, work that becomes (dual). There, work that is.”

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Paul Klee

Diary entry (1913), # 944; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee - Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev27.html
1911 - 1914

“The changeover was complete; in the summer of 1907 I devoted myself entirely to the appearance of nature and upon these studies built my black-and-white landscapes on glass, 1907/1908.”

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Paul Klee

Quote (1908), # 831, in The Diaries of Paul Klee; University of California Press, 1964; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee - Part Three' : Klee as a Secessionist and a Neo-Impressionist Artist http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev.html
1903 - 1910

“The eye travels along the paths cut out for it in the work.”

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Paul Klee

I.13 Productive | Receptive, p. 33
1921 - 1930, Pedagogical Sketch Book, (1925)

“Franz Marc.... is more human, he loves more warmly, is more demonstrative.... I only try to relate myself to God, and if I am in harmony with God, I don't fancy that my brothers are not also in harmony with me; but that is their business... My fire is more like that of the dead or the unborn... Art is like Creation: it holds good on the last days as on the first.
What my art probably lacks, is a kind of passionate humanity. I don't love animals and every sort of creature with an earthly warmth... I tend rather to dissolve into the whole of creation and am then on a footing of brotherliness to my neighbour, to all things earthly. I possess. The earth-idea gives way to the world-idea. My love is distant and religious.”

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Paul Klee

Quote (1916), # 1008, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1916 - 1920

“The naked body is an altogether suitable object. In art classes I have gradually learned something of it from every angle. But now I will no more project some plan of it: I will proceed so that all its essentials, even those hidden by optical perspective, will appear upon the paper. And thus a little uncontested personal property has already been discovered, a style has been created.”

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Paul Klee

Quote (June 1902), as cited in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 443
1895 - 1902

“In art, too, there is room enough for exact research... What was accomplished in music before the end of the eighteenth century has hardly been begun in the pictorial field.”

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Paul Klee

quote of Paul Klee from the text Exact experiments in the realm of art, 1928; as quoted in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016 https://www.zpk.org/en/exhibitions/review_0/2015/klee-kandinsky-969.html
1921 - 1930

“For the artist communication with nature remains the most essential condition. The artist is human; himself nature; part of nature within natural space.”

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Paul Klee

Klee's statement written in 1923, in 'Paths of the Study of Natura' (Wage dar Natur studiums), Paul Klee; in Yearbook of the Staatlich. Bauhaus, Weimar, 1919-1923, Bauhaus Verlag, Weimar, 1923
1921 - 1930

“Our initial perplexity before nature is explained by our seeing at first the small outer branches and not penetrating to the main branches or the trunk. But once this is realized, one will perceive a repetition of the whole law even in the outermost leaf and turn it to good use.”

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Paul Klee

Quote (1904), # 536, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1903 - 1910

“.. I thought I had come into the clear in art when for the first time I was able to apply an abstract style to nature.”

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Paul Klee

Paul Klee, in an autobiographical text for Wilhelm Hausenstein, 1919; as quoted in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016 https://www.zpk.org/en/exhibitions/review_0/2015/klee-kandinsky-969.html
1916 - 1920

“When in Italy [Klee stayed in Italy, in 1901], I learned to understand architectural monuments... Even the dullest will understand that the obvious commensurability of parts, to each other and to the whole, corresponds to the hidden numerical proportions that exist in other artificial and natural organisms. It is clear that these figures are not cold and dead, but full of the breath of life; and the importance of measurements as an aid to study and creation becomes evident.”

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Paul Klee

Quote (December 1903), as cited in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 444
1903 - 1910

“Serious color studies of nudes and heads. Only as practice and first training. Very strict determination of color values through water color. On top of it, some oils, simply for blending. The results are quite unattractive, little of importance to be hoped for here. This month of February is devoted to color. I painted many nudes from nature and even the portrait of a head, my syster's!”

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Paul Klee

Quote (1903), # 485, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1903 - 1910

“The more horrible this world (as today, for instance), the more abstract our art, whereas a happy world brings forth an art of the here and now.”

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Paul Klee

Diary entry (1915), # 951 , in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1916 - 1920
Variante: The more horrifying this world becomes (as it is these days) the more art becomes abstract; while a world at peace produces realistic art.
Variante: The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract; while a world at peace produces realistic art. (this variant was quoted in the speech "Between Two Ages: The Meaning Of Our Times" by Wm. Van Dusen Wishard) http://www.commonwealthnorth.org/transcripts/wishard.html

“Genesis as formal motion is the essential thing in a work. In the beginning the motif, insertion of energy, sperm. Works as shaping of form in the material sense: the primitive female component. Works as form - determining sperm: the primitive female component. My drawings belong to the male realm.”

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Paul Klee

Quote (1912), # 931, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1911 - 1914

“And now an altogether revolutionary discovery: to adapt oneself to the contents of the paintbox is more important than [to] nature and its study. I must some day be able to improvise freely on the chromatic keyboard of the rows of watercolor cup.”

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Paul Klee

Quote (1911), Diary # 873; as cited by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev27.html
1911 - 1914

“Alfred Kubin, my benefactor, has arrived! He acted so enthusiastic that he carried me away. We actually sat entranced in front of my drawings! Really quite entranced! Profoundly entranced!”

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Paul Klee

Quote (early 1911), Diary # 888; as cited by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev27.html
Alfred Kubin understood Klee's hieroglyphic language, based on symbols and signs and bought a series of works. As a reaction Klee started in February 1911 to make a precise catalog of all the works, still in his possession
1911 - 1914

“Receptively it [the work as human action] is limited by the limitations of the perceiving eye. The limitation of the eye is its inability to see even a small surface equally sharp at all points. The eye must "graze" over the surface, grasping sharply portion after portion, to convey them to the brain which collects and stores the impressions.”

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Paul Klee

I.13 Productive | Receptive, p. 33
1921 - 1930, Pedagogical Sketch Book, (1925)

“What had already been done for music by the end of the eighteenth century has at last been begun for the pictorial arts. Mathematics and physics furnished the means in the form of rules to be followed and to be broken. In the beginning it is wholesome to be concerned with the functions and to disregard the finished form. Studies in algebra, in geometry, in mechanics characterize teaching directed towards the essential and the functional, in contrast to apparent. One learns to look behind the façade, to grasp the root of things. One learns to recognize the undercurrents, the antecedents of the visible. One learns to dig down, to uncover, to find the cause, to analyze.”

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Paul Klee

1921 - 1930
Source: 'Bauhaus prospectus 1929'; as quoted in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 444

“Kandinsky wants to organize a new society of artists. I came to feel a deep trust in him [ Kandinsky ]. He is somebody, and has an exceptionally beautiful and lucid mind.”

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Paul Klee

Quote from Diaries III, 1911; as quoted by Enric Jardi, Paul Klee, Rizzoli Intl Pubns, 1991 - ISBN 0-8478-1343-6, p 12
In Autumn 1911 Klee made an acquaintance with August Macke and Kandinsky, and in winter he joined the editorial team of the almanac Der Blaue Reiter. After meeting Kandinsky in Munch, Klee recorded this.
1911 - 1914

“We [at the Bauhaus, in Dessau - where Klee was art teacher with Kandinsky ] construct and construct, and yet intuition still has its uses. Without it we can do a lot, but not everything... When intuition is joined to exact research it speeds the progress of exact research..”

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Paul Klee

1921 - 1930
Source: 'Bauhaus prospectus 1929'; as quoted in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 444

“Simple motion strikes us as banal. The time element must be eliminated. Yesterday and tomorrow as simultaneous. In music, polyphony helped to some extent to satisfy this need. A quintet as in 'Don Giovanni' is closer to us than the epic motion in 'Tristan [und Isolde]'. Mozart and Bach are more modern than the [music of the] nineteenth century.”

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Paul Klee

Quote (July 1917), # 1081, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1916 - 1920

“[I] launched a new offensive against the fortress of painting. First, white thinned out in linseed oil as a general base. Second, color the entire surface lightly by applying very large areas of different colors that swim into one other and that must remain free of any effect of chiaroscuro. Third, a drawing, independent of and substituting for the unformulated tonal values. Then, at the end, some bass notes to ward off flabbiness, not too dark, but colored bass notes. This is the style that connects drawing and the realm of color, a saving transfer of my fundamental graphic talent into the domain of painting”

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Paul Klee

Quote (1911), Diary # 875; as cited by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev27.htmlparagraph
1911 - 1914