Lot Essay
This picture represents a soprano named "L." in the role of Fiordiligi in Mozart's opera, Cos fan tutte. All his life, Paul Klee felt the greatest passion for music, especially opera; and Mozart represented for Klee the highest possible aesthetic achievement.
Klee was the son of a professional musician and played the violin every day. He wrote musical criticism and thought of music as a model for his art. His love for music, opera and theater was central to his life. His son, Felix Klee, records that:
"From his earliest youth Paul Klee was entranced by the theater. Perhaps what particularly struck him were the transformations, the changing appearances, the costumes and the sets. Certainly the theater was of the utmost importance to his work. However, Klee felt especially drawn toward opera. His preference for it may have been due to his pronounced musicality, to the many excellent performances under Mottl which he heard in Munich, or to opera's uniqueness as an art form... Klee was interested in all opera... However, he regarded Mozart as the greatest master of opera... When he was young, listening in the gallery of the Munich National Theater, he noted with exacting care on the score of Cos fan tutte his impressions of a performance magnificently conducted by Felix Mottl" (F. Klee, Paul Klee, New York, 1962, pp. 93-94).
Klee knew Don Giovanni by heart, and called Cos fan tutte "one of the greatest of miracles" (quoted in C. Geelhaar, op. cit., p. 86).
Klee made many works based on figures and scenes from operas. The first known example in his oeuvre is a drawing from 1898 of "Elsa's Dream," an aria in Act I of Lohengrin. Other examples are a watercolor of The Bavarian Don Giovanni (1917; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York), and a drawing of Dr. Bartolo from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (1921; Kunstmuseum, Bern). In 1921, Klee turned to Cos fan tutte for thematic inspiration. In that year and the next, he made at least two drawings depicting the opera's female protagonists, Despina, Dorabella, and Fiordiligi. One of the drawings is commonly known as Concerning the Fate of Two Girls (Bernhard Sprengel Collection, Hanover), and the other, Kostmierte Puppen (fig. 1). Aichele has written of this drawing, "The lines linking the figures are puppet strings, and Despina, standing behind a vacillating Dorabella and a still unyielding Fiordiligi, plays the role of a puppet master... The asymmetry of the composition reflects the imbalance in the psychological states of Mozart's two heroines. Depicted as flat shadow puppets ornamented with fanciful scrollwork, Klee's figures are as calculatedly artificial as the music in the first act of Mozart's opera" (P.K. Aichele, op. cit., p. 458).
Die Sngerin L. als Fiordiligi, from 1923, instead appears to be related to the Second Act. Christian Geelhaar has said of the painting: "The frontal pose indicates a 'heroic' moment. Indeed, this can be related exactly to a few beats in the score: in scene XII, to evade the stormy courtship of an Albanian, Fiordiligi makes up her mind to put on her fiance Guglielmo's uniform and follow him to war. She pulls down her coiffeur and places Guglielmo's two-pointed hat on her head--'I put on this hat, in your stead.' A glance in the glass shows her astonished at the change and she scarcely recognizes herself: 'Oh, how my face and appearance are changed! I scarcely know or recognize myself.' From the pencilled note on the sketch, we know that Klee first thought the title should be Fiordiligi putting on her armor" (C. Geelhaar, op. cit., p. 86).
Many historians and critics have noted that the figure resembles a puppet or marionette. For example, Will Grohmann has written, "His conception of the singer as an almost marionette-like 'neutral creature' is entirely in line with Goethe's notion of opera. The upper part of the body and the arms are hinged like a doll's, with head, hair and hat fitted exactly to the body." The resemblance to puppets was completely intentional. Puppetry, like opera, is a theater of illusion and make-believe, and Klee adored its fantastic nature. Indeed, Klee, in the period of the painting, constructed a puppet-theater and fifty puppets for his son, Felix. About thirty of the puppets survive, and in their expressive simplicity they resemble the painting. Lyonel Feininger has said, "Most beautiful of all were the masks and figures of the puppet theatre that Klee had made for Felix. Indescribably expressive, each single figure, even portraits of close friends aptly characterized and humorously caricatured. There was no end to the laughing and the enthusiasm when Felix gave a performance in his grotesque manner. Klee then sat somewhere in a corner, smoking his pipe and smiling in quiet enjoyment" (quoted in M. Plant, op. cit., p. 100).
Puppet-like figures also appears frequently in Klee's paintings and drawings from the early 1920s (figs. 2 and 3).
Grohmann has called the present painting "One of Klee's most famous theatrical figures," and has commented:
"Note how closely Klee comes to musical elements with his pictorial technique, how the motifs are transformed into themes, how the melody develops rhythmically and harmonically with relatively few embellishments... What matters here is the ambivalence of the figurations, the unrealistic gestures, expressions and colors, which are anything but descriptive. The background is scarcely operatic, with no suggestion of stage props, merely a scale of inexplicit tones ranging from gray to pink-gray and ocher, plus a bit of brown at the edges-all this is left very tentative. Fiordiligi, however, rises from this ambiance like Aphrodite from the sea foam; she is here, she alone, and nothing else matters (W. Grohmann, op. cit., 1969, p. 96).
The singer "L." has never been identified. Perhaps Klee meant it to depict Lily Lehman, the great German soprano.
Klee was fascinated with the figure and made another drawing of her (fig. 4) in 1923, and later made further interpretations of the character, including a print in 1925 and a painting, all of which he titled Die Sngerin der komischen Oper.
(fig. 2) Paul Klee, Populre Wandmalerei, 1922
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (The Berggruen Collection)
(fig. 1) Paul Klee, Kostmierte Puppen, 1922
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
(fig. 4) Paul Klee, Sngerin der komischen Oper, 1923
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
(fig. 3) Paul Klee, Lomolarm, 1923
Location unknown
Klee was the son of a professional musician and played the violin every day. He wrote musical criticism and thought of music as a model for his art. His love for music, opera and theater was central to his life. His son, Felix Klee, records that:
"From his earliest youth Paul Klee was entranced by the theater. Perhaps what particularly struck him were the transformations, the changing appearances, the costumes and the sets. Certainly the theater was of the utmost importance to his work. However, Klee felt especially drawn toward opera. His preference for it may have been due to his pronounced musicality, to the many excellent performances under Mottl which he heard in Munich, or to opera's uniqueness as an art form... Klee was interested in all opera... However, he regarded Mozart as the greatest master of opera... When he was young, listening in the gallery of the Munich National Theater, he noted with exacting care on the score of Cos fan tutte his impressions of a performance magnificently conducted by Felix Mottl" (F. Klee, Paul Klee, New York, 1962, pp. 93-94).
Klee knew Don Giovanni by heart, and called Cos fan tutte "one of the greatest of miracles" (quoted in C. Geelhaar, op. cit., p. 86).
Klee made many works based on figures and scenes from operas. The first known example in his oeuvre is a drawing from 1898 of "Elsa's Dream," an aria in Act I of Lohengrin. Other examples are a watercolor of The Bavarian Don Giovanni (1917; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York), and a drawing of Dr. Bartolo from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (1921; Kunstmuseum, Bern). In 1921, Klee turned to Cos fan tutte for thematic inspiration. In that year and the next, he made at least two drawings depicting the opera's female protagonists, Despina, Dorabella, and Fiordiligi. One of the drawings is commonly known as Concerning the Fate of Two Girls (Bernhard Sprengel Collection, Hanover), and the other, Kostmierte Puppen (fig. 1). Aichele has written of this drawing, "The lines linking the figures are puppet strings, and Despina, standing behind a vacillating Dorabella and a still unyielding Fiordiligi, plays the role of a puppet master... The asymmetry of the composition reflects the imbalance in the psychological states of Mozart's two heroines. Depicted as flat shadow puppets ornamented with fanciful scrollwork, Klee's figures are as calculatedly artificial as the music in the first act of Mozart's opera" (P.K. Aichele, op. cit., p. 458).
Die Sngerin L. als Fiordiligi, from 1923, instead appears to be related to the Second Act. Christian Geelhaar has said of the painting: "The frontal pose indicates a 'heroic' moment. Indeed, this can be related exactly to a few beats in the score: in scene XII, to evade the stormy courtship of an Albanian, Fiordiligi makes up her mind to put on her fiance Guglielmo's uniform and follow him to war. She pulls down her coiffeur and places Guglielmo's two-pointed hat on her head--'I put on this hat, in your stead.' A glance in the glass shows her astonished at the change and she scarcely recognizes herself: 'Oh, how my face and appearance are changed! I scarcely know or recognize myself.' From the pencilled note on the sketch, we know that Klee first thought the title should be Fiordiligi putting on her armor" (C. Geelhaar, op. cit., p. 86).
Many historians and critics have noted that the figure resembles a puppet or marionette. For example, Will Grohmann has written, "His conception of the singer as an almost marionette-like 'neutral creature' is entirely in line with Goethe's notion of opera. The upper part of the body and the arms are hinged like a doll's, with head, hair and hat fitted exactly to the body." The resemblance to puppets was completely intentional. Puppetry, like opera, is a theater of illusion and make-believe, and Klee adored its fantastic nature. Indeed, Klee, in the period of the painting, constructed a puppet-theater and fifty puppets for his son, Felix. About thirty of the puppets survive, and in their expressive simplicity they resemble the painting. Lyonel Feininger has said, "Most beautiful of all were the masks and figures of the puppet theatre that Klee had made for Felix. Indescribably expressive, each single figure, even portraits of close friends aptly characterized and humorously caricatured. There was no end to the laughing and the enthusiasm when Felix gave a performance in his grotesque manner. Klee then sat somewhere in a corner, smoking his pipe and smiling in quiet enjoyment" (quoted in M. Plant, op. cit., p. 100).
Puppet-like figures also appears frequently in Klee's paintings and drawings from the early 1920s (figs. 2 and 3).
Grohmann has called the present painting "One of Klee's most famous theatrical figures," and has commented:
"Note how closely Klee comes to musical elements with his pictorial technique, how the motifs are transformed into themes, how the melody develops rhythmically and harmonically with relatively few embellishments... What matters here is the ambivalence of the figurations, the unrealistic gestures, expressions and colors, which are anything but descriptive. The background is scarcely operatic, with no suggestion of stage props, merely a scale of inexplicit tones ranging from gray to pink-gray and ocher, plus a bit of brown at the edges-all this is left very tentative. Fiordiligi, however, rises from this ambiance like Aphrodite from the sea foam; she is here, she alone, and nothing else matters (W. Grohmann, op. cit., 1969, p. 96).
The singer "L." has never been identified. Perhaps Klee meant it to depict Lily Lehman, the great German soprano.
Klee was fascinated with the figure and made another drawing of her (fig. 4) in 1923, and later made further interpretations of the character, including a print in 1925 and a painting, all of which he titled Die Sngerin der komischen Oper.
(fig. 2) Paul Klee, Populre Wandmalerei, 1922
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (The Berggruen Collection)
(fig. 1) Paul Klee, Kostmierte Puppen, 1922
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
(fig. 4) Paul Klee, Sngerin der komischen Oper, 1923
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
(fig. 3) Paul Klee, Lomolarm, 1923
Location unknown