„Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern macht sichtbar.“
Schöpferische Konfession. In: Tribüne der Kunst und der Zeit. Eine Schriftensammlung, Band XIII, hgg. v. Kasimir Edschmid. Reiß, Berlin 1920. S. 28
Zitate von Paul Klee
3 1
Paul Klee
Geburtstag: 18. Dezember 1879
Todesdatum: 29. Juni 1940
Paul Ernst Klee war ein deutscher Maler und Grafiker, dessen vielseitiges Werk dem Expressionismus, Konstruktivismus, Kubismus, Primitivismus und dem Surrealismus zugeordnet wird. Klee stand in engem Kontakt zur Redaktionsgemeinschaft Der Blaue Reiter und zeigte auf ihrer zweiten Ausstellung 1912 grafische Arbeiten. Dem bis zu dieser Zeit hauptsächlich als Grafiker tätigen Künstler verhalf eine 1914 gemeinsam mit August Macke und Louis Moilliet durchgeführte Reise nach Tunesien zu seinem Durchbruch als Maler. Sie wurde als kunstgeschichtlich bedeutende Tunisreise bekannt.
Wie sein Freund, der russische Maler Wassily Kandinsky, lehrte Klee ab 1921 am Bauhaus in Weimar und später in Dessau. Ab 1931 war er Professor an der Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Nach der Machtergreifung durch die Nationalsozialisten wurde er entlassen und ging zurück nach Bern, wo während der letzten Jahre ab dem Jahr 1934 trotz wachsender Belastung durch eine schwere Krankheit ein umfangreiches Spätwerk entstand. Neben seinem künstlerischen Werk verfasste er kunsttheoretische Schriften wie beispielsweise Schöpferische Konfession und Pädagogisches Skizzenbuch . Paul Klee gehört zu den bedeutendsten bildenden Künstlern der Klassischen Moderne des 20. Jahrhunderts. Wikipedia
Zitate Paul Klee
„Die Musik über alles lieben, heißt unglücklich sein.“
Tagebücher 1898-1918. Hrsg. von Felix Klee. Köln: DuMont Schauberg, 1957. S. 71
„Die Farbe hat mich. Ich brauche nicht nach ihr zu haschen. Sie hat mich für immer. Das ist der glücklichen Stunde Sinn: ich und die Farbe sind eins. Ich bin Maler.“
Tagebücher 1898-1918. Hrsg. von Felix Klee. Köln: DuMont Schauberg, 1957. S. 307
„His [ Van Gogh's] pathos is alien to me, especially in my current phase, but he is certainly a genius. Pathetic to the point of being pathological, this endangered man can endanger one who does not see through him. Here a brain is consumed by the fire of a star. It frees itself in its work just before the catastrophe. Deepest tragedy takes place here, real tragedy, natural tragedy, exemplary tragedy. Permit me to be terrified.“
Quote (1908), # 816, in The Diaries of Paul Klee; University of California Press, 1964; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee - Part Three' : Klee as a Secessionist and a Neo-Impressionist Artist http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev.html
1903 - 1910
„My mirror probes down to the heart.“
Diary entry (Munich, 1901), # 136, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918; University of California Press, 1968, p. 48
1895 - 1902
Kontext: My mirror probes down to the heart. I write words on the forehead and around the corners of the mouth. My human faces are truer than the real ones.
„Things appear to assume a broader and more diversified meaning, often seemingly contradicting the rational experience of yesterday. There is a striving to emphasize the essential character of the accidental.“
Section V
1916 - 1920, Creative Credo (1920)
Kontext: Formerly we used to represent things visible on earth, things we either liked to look at or would have liked to see. Today we reveal the reality that is behind visible things, thus expressing the belief that the visible world is merely an isolated case in relation to the universe and that there are many more other, latent realities. Things appear to assume a broader and more diversified meaning, often seemingly contradicting the rational experience of yesterday. There is a striving to emphasize the essential character of the accidental.
„Nature can afford to be prodigal in everything, the artist must be frugal down to the last detail.“
Diary entry (Munich, 1909), # 857, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918; University of California Press, 1968, p. 236
1903 - 1910
Kontext: Nature can afford to be prodigal in everything, the artist must be frugal down to the last detail.
Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn.
„The main thing now is not to paint precociously but to be, or at least become, an individual.“
Diary entry (3 June 1902), # 411, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918; University of California Press, 1968
1895 - 1902
Kontext: The main thing now is not to paint precociously but to be, or at least become, an individual. The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.
„Art does not reproduce what we see. It makes us see.“
Section I
(de) Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern macht sichtbar.
1916 - 1920, Creative Credo (1920)
Variante: Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.
„We [at the Bauhaus, in Dessau - where Klee was art teacher with Kandinsky ] construct and construct, and yet intuition still has its uses. Without it we can do a lot, but not everything... When intuition is joined to exact research it speeds the progress of exact research..“
1921 - 1930
Quelle: 'Bauhaus prospectus 1929'; as quoted in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 444
„..(Then come the lovers of art / and contemplate the bleeding work from outside. / Then come the photographers. / "New art," it says in the newspaper the following day. / The learned journals / give it a name that ends in "ism").“
Quote (1905), # 690, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1903 - 1910
„I am God / So much of the divine / is heaped in me / that I cannot die.
My head burns to the point of bursting.
One of the worlds / hidden in it / wants to be born. / But now I must suffer / to bring it forth.“
Quote (1901), # 155, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1895 - 1902
„Thoughts about the art of portraiture. Some will not recognize the truthfulness of my mirror. Let them remember that I am not here to reflect the surface (this can be done by the photographic plate), but must penetrate inside. My mirror probes down to the heart. I write words on the forehead and around the corners of the mouth. My human faces are truer than the real ones.“
Diary entry (1901), # 136, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918; University of California Press, 1964
1895 - 1902
„My etchings have.... the mistake of being processed as images and to have at the same time the meaning of epigrams. It is the union of pure painting with pure graphics... From now onwards my task will be the division of art and graphics, and the full development of both fields. The pure art has already turned to impressionism and the graphics is going to do it.“
Quote in a letter to his wife, 12 June, 1906; as cited in Paul Klee. Das Frühwerk 1883-1922, p. 50.
1903 - 1910
„.. I served Beauty by drawing her enemies.“
Quote of Paul Klee, from 'Diaries I', 1901; as quoted in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016 https://www.zpk.org/en/exhibitions/review_0/2015/klee-kandinsky-969.html
on his caricatures and his satirical drawings Klee made then
1895 - 1902
„Bones are coordinated to form the skeleton.
Even at rest they depend on mutual support.
This is furnished by the ligaments.
Theirs is a secondary function; one could speak of a hierarchy of function.
The next step in motoric organization leads from bone to muscle. The tendon is the mediary between these two.“
I.9 A The Natural organism of movement as kinetic will and kinetic execution (supra-material), p. 27
1921 - 1930, Pedagogical Sketch Book, (1925)
