Lot Essay
Klee executed more than a dozen works during the 1920s depicting fish. Richard Verdi calls them, "a small but momentous group of works which lies at the heart of Klee's creative achievement" (Klee and Nature, New York, 1975, no. 171). Klee's interest goes far beyond that of realistically delineating fish, as he investigates the cosmic nature of their existence and their unending cycles of life. In the present picture Aquarium, painted on a thick and purposely uneven gesso surface into which he has incised the outlines and details of the fish, he presents the creatures in the ghostly nocturnal setting of the hidden depths of the sea-bed, against which the group of irridescent fish glimmer like mystical jewels.
"In their sombre and illimitable backgrounds one confronts both death and infinity; while in the irridescently painted fishes and flowers one is reminded of those myriad existences which play themselves out against the boundless backdrop of time. Such pictures might be grouped together as a series of mystical equations in which the inhabitants of earth and sky are shown against the void of eternity like so many hapless hostages of Fortune." (R. Verdi, loc. cit.).
Will Grohmann writes, "Even in these magical pictures Klee proceeds methodically. Like a musician he sets note next to note, develops, particularizes, deepens, visualizes independently of outer reality, until the final form emerges. In this process one or another of his "dimensions" comes to the fore - the tonal value or the color or the rhythm, the harmony of the counterpoint. A pictorial order results which is an analogue of nature. The distribution of color is such that cold hues press from the periphery against warm, bright ones in the center (transition from blue to red through green and brown, from the larger to the smaller form); or the balance between major and minor keys may produce an effect of inner poise. These pictures are painted on a black ground on which, according to Klee, it is particularly difficult to balance the color values; but "we do not have to understand the black, it is the primeval ground." In some of these compositions the sublime lies at a great depth, in others it is contained within the logic of the surface structure." (Paul Klee, London, 1964, p. 215).
Klee's delight in studying nature and in particular creatures of the fish kingdom is well illustrated by a letter from Klee written to his wife Lily from his vacation on the island of Porquerolles on 6 August 1927, "I went swimming nearly every day. It is very amusing, one sees crabs, sea anemones, hermit-crabs, pretty snails and tiny ones, underwater flora and above water flora, simply wonderful." (S. Rewald, Paul Klee, New York, 1988, p. 219).
This work is recorded in the artist's werkverzeichnis as follows:
1927,8
Gemälde
Aquarium
Olfarben
Gipsgrund auf Holz montiert
Orig-Leisten
The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by Dr. Stefan Frey of the Paul Klee Stiftung
"In their sombre and illimitable backgrounds one confronts both death and infinity; while in the irridescently painted fishes and flowers one is reminded of those myriad existences which play themselves out against the boundless backdrop of time. Such pictures might be grouped together as a series of mystical equations in which the inhabitants of earth and sky are shown against the void of eternity like so many hapless hostages of Fortune." (R. Verdi, loc. cit.).
Will Grohmann writes, "Even in these magical pictures Klee proceeds methodically. Like a musician he sets note next to note, develops, particularizes, deepens, visualizes independently of outer reality, until the final form emerges. In this process one or another of his "dimensions" comes to the fore - the tonal value or the color or the rhythm, the harmony of the counterpoint. A pictorial order results which is an analogue of nature. The distribution of color is such that cold hues press from the periphery against warm, bright ones in the center (transition from blue to red through green and brown, from the larger to the smaller form); or the balance between major and minor keys may produce an effect of inner poise. These pictures are painted on a black ground on which, according to Klee, it is particularly difficult to balance the color values; but "we do not have to understand the black, it is the primeval ground." In some of these compositions the sublime lies at a great depth, in others it is contained within the logic of the surface structure." (Paul Klee, London, 1964, p. 215).
Klee's delight in studying nature and in particular creatures of the fish kingdom is well illustrated by a letter from Klee written to his wife Lily from his vacation on the island of Porquerolles on 6 August 1927, "I went swimming nearly every day. It is very amusing, one sees crabs, sea anemones, hermit-crabs, pretty snails and tiny ones, underwater flora and above water flora, simply wonderful." (S. Rewald, Paul Klee, New York, 1988, p. 219).
This work is recorded in the artist's werkverzeichnis as follows:
1927,8
Gemälde
Aquarium
Olfarben
Gipsgrund auf Holz montiert
Orig-Leisten
The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by Dr. Stefan Frey of the Paul Klee Stiftung