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Lot Essay
‘We used to represent things visible on earth which we enjoyed seeing or would have liked to see. Now we reveal the reality of visible things, and thereby express the belief that visible reality is merely an isolated phenomenon latently outnumbered by other realities’
(Klee, quoted in W. Grohmann, Paul Klee, London, 1954, p. 181).
Executed in 1930, Kurze Seereise (Short Sea Voyage) is a lyrical and poetic image that demonstrates the unique way in which Paul Klee imbued combinations of geometric lines and forms with a magical beauty and visual harmony. Gliding through an ethereal sea of blue, two precisely rendered yet ambiguous three-dimensional objects dominate the composition, the arrows below them indicating their oppositional movement, next to which a linear outline of a boat floats, a reference perhaps to the sea voyage indicated by the painting’s title. A perfect blue circle – a form that could be viewed as a full moon – presides over this finely executed, delicate watercolour.
An avid traveller, throughout his life Klee was profoundly affected by the many trips he made abroad. From Tunisia and Italy, to Corsica and France, Klee revelled in the varying landscapes and terrains of these exotic countries, absorbing the changing colours and light and conveying these in his painting. At the end of 1928, two years before he executed the present work, Klee had voyaged by boat to Egypt, a trip that the artist’s friend and biographer, Will Grohmann described as ‘the greatest single source of inspiration in his later years’ (W. Grohmann, Paul Klee, London, 1954, p. 76). Here, Klee was captivated by the ancient culture of the country that simultaneously felt full of life and vitality, and he conveyed his impressions of the landscape in his work in a variety of ways over the following years. From this point onwards, Klee simplified his compositions, freeing space from Western pictorial traditions as his images became increasingly abstract, filled with brighter and lighter colours than he had used before. Painted three years after Klee’s trip to Egypt, with its glowing hues and simplified composition, Kurze Seereise (Short Sea Voyage) demonstrates the monumental and magical effect that his visit to Egypt had on his art.
By the end of 1929, Klee had begun to produce, as Grohmann describes, ‘mobile spatial images’ (ibid., p. 88): works consisting of overlapping planes and seemingly weightless forms, rendered with a mathematical precision, which give the impression of gentle movement, as if the shapes are floating, gliding, falling or hovering within space. At this time, Klee, inspired by the beliefs of the new director of the Bauhaus, Hannes Meyer, became interested in geometrical construction, and rendered numerous geometric drawings which feature three-dimensional structures. Though executed with precise observation and careful formal construction, the combination of three-dimensional forms and flattened planes of colour in Kurze Seereise (Short Sea Voyage) paradoxically creates a fantastical, dream-like and surreal image. This is heightened by Klee’s abandonment of illusionistic space, as he instead created a limitless or ‘irrational’ imaginary space without boundaries, which extends beyond the picture plane.
Kurze Seereise (Short Sea Voyage) dates from the end of Klee’s highly productive period spent teaching at the Bauhaus in Dessau. After pressure from a new right-wing government had closed the Weimar Bauhaus, on whose faculty Klee had been teaching since 1921, in 1925 the school moved to a new location in Dessau, where, thanks to the sympathetic town council, a new building designed by Walter Gropius was built. Klee, a teacher or ‘Master’ at the Bauhaus, resumed teaching and, in July 1926, moved with his family into a house on the campus, which they shared with Wassily and Nina Kandinsky. Throughout the years that Klee spent at Dessau, his work became bolder and more experimental and by 1930, at the time he painted Kurze Seereise (Short Sea Voyage), the artist was enjoying international renown. In December 1929, the dealer Alfred Flechtheim organised a large retrospective of the artist’s work which subsequently travelled to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, while the French periodical, Cahiers d’Art commissioned a large volume of reproductions of his oeuvre. Just a year after he painted Kurze Seereise (Short Sea Voyage), Klee, seeking greater freedom, resigned from the Bauhaus and accepted a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dusseldorf, marking the end of this remarkable tenure. In 1932, the Nazis gained control of the Dessau Council, and the school was once again closed.
(Klee, quoted in W. Grohmann, Paul Klee, London, 1954, p. 181).
Executed in 1930, Kurze Seereise (Short Sea Voyage) is a lyrical and poetic image that demonstrates the unique way in which Paul Klee imbued combinations of geometric lines and forms with a magical beauty and visual harmony. Gliding through an ethereal sea of blue, two precisely rendered yet ambiguous three-dimensional objects dominate the composition, the arrows below them indicating their oppositional movement, next to which a linear outline of a boat floats, a reference perhaps to the sea voyage indicated by the painting’s title. A perfect blue circle – a form that could be viewed as a full moon – presides over this finely executed, delicate watercolour.
An avid traveller, throughout his life Klee was profoundly affected by the many trips he made abroad. From Tunisia and Italy, to Corsica and France, Klee revelled in the varying landscapes and terrains of these exotic countries, absorbing the changing colours and light and conveying these in his painting. At the end of 1928, two years before he executed the present work, Klee had voyaged by boat to Egypt, a trip that the artist’s friend and biographer, Will Grohmann described as ‘the greatest single source of inspiration in his later years’ (W. Grohmann, Paul Klee, London, 1954, p. 76). Here, Klee was captivated by the ancient culture of the country that simultaneously felt full of life and vitality, and he conveyed his impressions of the landscape in his work in a variety of ways over the following years. From this point onwards, Klee simplified his compositions, freeing space from Western pictorial traditions as his images became increasingly abstract, filled with brighter and lighter colours than he had used before. Painted three years after Klee’s trip to Egypt, with its glowing hues and simplified composition, Kurze Seereise (Short Sea Voyage) demonstrates the monumental and magical effect that his visit to Egypt had on his art.
By the end of 1929, Klee had begun to produce, as Grohmann describes, ‘mobile spatial images’ (ibid., p. 88): works consisting of overlapping planes and seemingly weightless forms, rendered with a mathematical precision, which give the impression of gentle movement, as if the shapes are floating, gliding, falling or hovering within space. At this time, Klee, inspired by the beliefs of the new director of the Bauhaus, Hannes Meyer, became interested in geometrical construction, and rendered numerous geometric drawings which feature three-dimensional structures. Though executed with precise observation and careful formal construction, the combination of three-dimensional forms and flattened planes of colour in Kurze Seereise (Short Sea Voyage) paradoxically creates a fantastical, dream-like and surreal image. This is heightened by Klee’s abandonment of illusionistic space, as he instead created a limitless or ‘irrational’ imaginary space without boundaries, which extends beyond the picture plane.
Kurze Seereise (Short Sea Voyage) dates from the end of Klee’s highly productive period spent teaching at the Bauhaus in Dessau. After pressure from a new right-wing government had closed the Weimar Bauhaus, on whose faculty Klee had been teaching since 1921, in 1925 the school moved to a new location in Dessau, where, thanks to the sympathetic town council, a new building designed by Walter Gropius was built. Klee, a teacher or ‘Master’ at the Bauhaus, resumed teaching and, in July 1926, moved with his family into a house on the campus, which they shared with Wassily and Nina Kandinsky. Throughout the years that Klee spent at Dessau, his work became bolder and more experimental and by 1930, at the time he painted Kurze Seereise (Short Sea Voyage), the artist was enjoying international renown. In December 1929, the dealer Alfred Flechtheim organised a large retrospective of the artist’s work which subsequently travelled to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, while the French periodical, Cahiers d’Art commissioned a large volume of reproductions of his oeuvre. Just a year after he painted Kurze Seereise (Short Sea Voyage), Klee, seeking greater freedom, resigned from the Bauhaus and accepted a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dusseldorf, marking the end of this remarkable tenure. In 1932, the Nazis gained control of the Dessau Council, and the school was once again closed.