Lot Essay
Colour is an all-important element in Klee's oeuvre. As early as 1914 he wrote, "Colour possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will always possess me, I know it. Colour and I are one. I am a painter." The colour experiences of his Tunisian visit in 1914 were influential for most of his subsequent mature work. Einsames, while looking back to the Tunisian experience prefigures the great "Egyptian" works executed during the following years (1929-1932) wherein pictures composed of horizontal coloured bands and grids capture the very essence of the Orient.
"This idea of using parallel bands first appeared as a graphic procedure in 1926, but now it was systematically elaborated, became a constructive pictorial framework, was transposed into the realm of colour and used there in its purest form...a pure independent and abstract formal procedure which derived logically from his ideas of 1923 (building with cubes) and 1926 (rhythmic plaiting). This method of handling form was a successful fusion of the three separate methods used by Klee hitherto. The stripes ensure a simple monumental construction covering the whole surface of the picture. Rhythm enters into this striped construction as a movement which sets the framework quivering. The keyboard of stripes is then used to beat out a simple but forceful rhythmn, which is based, as in music, on certain numerical intervals...As Klee piled one area of colour upon another and allowed an image to develop out of his repeated rhythms, he listened to or felt the pulse-beat of what was growing and acted accordingly. His own psyche began to vibrate, then its wavelength coincided with that of the picture, and ultimately in a flash of recognition Klee was able to give his picture a human and objective significance." (W. Haftmann, The Mind and Work of Paul Klee, London, 1967, pp. 178-9).
The pictorial device of an arrow in Klee's pictures is a major feature of his work during the 1920s and 1930s. From its initial appearance in his pictures during 1913 when it had a naturalistic function it assumed a great theoretical and symbolic significance during the Bauhaus years. In a 1922 lecture to the Bauhaus Klee stated, "The father of every force of movement or projectile, and hence of the arrow, was the thought; how can I extend my reach over there? Beyond this stream, this lake? Beyond this mountain? over there?" The arrow came to symbolise for Klee not just direction of movement but direction and expansion of thought beyond the confines of physical being. Of the present picture Mark Rosenthal writes, "In most pictures the meaning of the arrow is so great that it becomes the metaphorical perpetrator of the action. The watercolour Einsames is related to Helden mit dem Flügel. By using one of his most favourite visual middle sections - the combination of joint and individual elements - Klee leaves the symbol yet to be solidified. The neverending possibilities for repetition of the bands of colour are here in stark contrast to the individuality of the arrow. Occasionally Klee also changes the arrow to demonstrate how one point can be made to move; and movement - in Klee's eyes - constitutes the reasons for the entire universe. These ideas take shape in Einsames, the sole existence of the arrow itself becoming the theme of the drama. The unity of the individual form and the direction of the arrow combine with the facets of the bands of colour. The upward motion out of the darkness into the light lends itself, as in the poem Zwei Berge, to being interpreted as the possible transformation of the earth-bound heroes." ("Der Held mit dem Flügel", in Paul Klee: Das graphische und plastische Werke, Berne, 1975, p. 35 (trans. Christie's)).
"This idea of using parallel bands first appeared as a graphic procedure in 1926, but now it was systematically elaborated, became a constructive pictorial framework, was transposed into the realm of colour and used there in its purest form...a pure independent and abstract formal procedure which derived logically from his ideas of 1923 (building with cubes) and 1926 (rhythmic plaiting). This method of handling form was a successful fusion of the three separate methods used by Klee hitherto. The stripes ensure a simple monumental construction covering the whole surface of the picture. Rhythm enters into this striped construction as a movement which sets the framework quivering. The keyboard of stripes is then used to beat out a simple but forceful rhythmn, which is based, as in music, on certain numerical intervals...As Klee piled one area of colour upon another and allowed an image to develop out of his repeated rhythms, he listened to or felt the pulse-beat of what was growing and acted accordingly. His own psyche began to vibrate, then its wavelength coincided with that of the picture, and ultimately in a flash of recognition Klee was able to give his picture a human and objective significance." (W. Haftmann, The Mind and Work of Paul Klee, London, 1967, pp. 178-9).
The pictorial device of an arrow in Klee's pictures is a major feature of his work during the 1920s and 1930s. From its initial appearance in his pictures during 1913 when it had a naturalistic function it assumed a great theoretical and symbolic significance during the Bauhaus years. In a 1922 lecture to the Bauhaus Klee stated, "The father of every force of movement or projectile, and hence of the arrow, was the thought; how can I extend my reach over there? Beyond this stream, this lake? Beyond this mountain? over there?" The arrow came to symbolise for Klee not just direction of movement but direction and expansion of thought beyond the confines of physical being. Of the present picture Mark Rosenthal writes, "In most pictures the meaning of the arrow is so great that it becomes the metaphorical perpetrator of the action. The watercolour Einsames is related to Helden mit dem Flügel. By using one of his most favourite visual middle sections - the combination of joint and individual elements - Klee leaves the symbol yet to be solidified. The neverending possibilities for repetition of the bands of colour are here in stark contrast to the individuality of the arrow. Occasionally Klee also changes the arrow to demonstrate how one point can be made to move; and movement - in Klee's eyes - constitutes the reasons for the entire universe. These ideas take shape in Einsames, the sole existence of the arrow itself becoming the theme of the drama. The unity of the individual form and the direction of the arrow combine with the facets of the bands of colour. The upward motion out of the darkness into the light lends itself, as in the poem Zwei Berge, to being interpreted as the possible transformation of the earth-bound heroes." ("Der Held mit dem Flügel", in Paul Klee: Das graphische und plastische Werke, Berne, 1975, p. 35 (trans. Christie's)).