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Lot Essay
'The birds are to be envied:
They avoid
Thinking about the tree and the roots
Agile, self-contended, all day long they swing.' (... The Inward Vision. Paul Klee: Watercolours, Drawings, Writings...)
This poem on birds, which are a central motif in the artist's oeuvre, was written by Paul Klee and adds in yet a another media to his wonderful renderings of flora and fauna on canvas and paper. For Klee, the cycle of nature and art were very close. While nature appears largely in his art, it is never pure illustration, but a poetic and always playful, philosophical comment or rendering. Klee was fascinated with the birds possibility of 'free mobility' and a world beyond earthly constraints: 'We are led to the upper ways by yearning to free ourselves from earthly bonds; by swimming and flying, we free ourselves from constraint in pure mobility' (Schriften, p. 125). The ducks in the present work hence have a very special meaning. Not only can they walk and swim, but also fly. While flying is generally the association of great freedom to move in space, this bird is not limited to any particular means, but seems to be able to do it all. Ultimately, it is the vision of dynamism, movement and flexibility in all possible ways, which Klee returns to, over and over again.
'I don't love animals and every sort of creature' Paul Klee writes 'with an earthly warmth. I don't descend to them or raise them to myself. 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.' (Paul Klee, quoted in F. Klee, (ed.), The Diaries of Paul Klee 1889-1918, Los Angeles, 1968, no. 1008).
Animals and birds of all kinds became a great feature in Klee's oeuvre from very early on. The present work is a very special rendering of a bird with triple abilities. Sitting, flying and swimming - all three kinds of movements are suggested by different kinds of birds and even a fish. The one bird who is able to do it all is represented by the initial 'E' in the centre. Embodied in geometric fields of colour, the work still echoes Klee's inspirational and forming trip to Tunisia in 1914. The colours are the colours of the south and a warm climate - only the brown stands out and might be a reference to the brown feathers of the female ducks. The complex work with different techniques and abstract as well as figurative areas recalls Delaunay's famous quote 'Nature is imbued with a rhythm that in its multiplicity cannot be constrained' (Quoted in E.-G. Güse, Paul Klee. Dialogue with Nature, Munich 1991, p. 13). Klee not only had translated Delaunay's essay 'Sur la lumière', which is the source of this quote, and which was published in 'Der Sturm' in January 1913 but it had influenced Klee's concept of art.
They avoid
Thinking about the tree and the roots
Agile, self-contended, all day long they swing.' (... The Inward Vision. Paul Klee: Watercolours, Drawings, Writings...)
This poem on birds, which are a central motif in the artist's oeuvre, was written by Paul Klee and adds in yet a another media to his wonderful renderings of flora and fauna on canvas and paper. For Klee, the cycle of nature and art were very close. While nature appears largely in his art, it is never pure illustration, but a poetic and always playful, philosophical comment or rendering. Klee was fascinated with the birds possibility of 'free mobility' and a world beyond earthly constraints: 'We are led to the upper ways by yearning to free ourselves from earthly bonds; by swimming and flying, we free ourselves from constraint in pure mobility' (Schriften, p. 125). The ducks in the present work hence have a very special meaning. Not only can they walk and swim, but also fly. While flying is generally the association of great freedom to move in space, this bird is not limited to any particular means, but seems to be able to do it all. Ultimately, it is the vision of dynamism, movement and flexibility in all possible ways, which Klee returns to, over and over again.
'I don't love animals and every sort of creature' Paul Klee writes 'with an earthly warmth. I don't descend to them or raise them to myself. 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.' (Paul Klee, quoted in F. Klee, (ed.), The Diaries of Paul Klee 1889-1918, Los Angeles, 1968, no. 1008).
Animals and birds of all kinds became a great feature in Klee's oeuvre from very early on. The present work is a very special rendering of a bird with triple abilities. Sitting, flying and swimming - all three kinds of movements are suggested by different kinds of birds and even a fish. The one bird who is able to do it all is represented by the initial 'E' in the centre. Embodied in geometric fields of colour, the work still echoes Klee's inspirational and forming trip to Tunisia in 1914. The colours are the colours of the south and a warm climate - only the brown stands out and might be a reference to the brown feathers of the female ducks. The complex work with different techniques and abstract as well as figurative areas recalls Delaunay's famous quote 'Nature is imbued with a rhythm that in its multiplicity cannot be constrained' (Quoted in E.-G. Güse, Paul Klee. Dialogue with Nature, Munich 1991, p. 13). Klee not only had translated Delaunay's essay 'Sur la lumière', which is the source of this quote, and which was published in 'Der Sturm' in January 1913 but it had influenced Klee's concept of art.