Paul Klee was an artist of Swiss-German descent and was born in Switzerland on December 18, 1879.
His incredibly distinctive aesthetic was influenced by creative trends like cubism, expressionism, and surrealism, on which he used to give lectures. Klee was a natural product designer who started experimenting with and eventually thoroughly explored color theory after dealing with a lot of confusion.
He shared a series of lectures with Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, a colleague, at the German Bauhaus school of design, art, and architecture (Munich). He later got inducted into the city's Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. His artistic creations are a reflection of his musicality, dry humor, and occasionally innocent viewpoint.
In January 1921 and April 1931, Klee gave many lectures on art style at the Bauhaus. He was given two studios and served as a 'Form' master in the workshops for stained glass, bookbinding, and mural painting.
The first Bauhaus exhibition and festival took place in 1922, and Klee produced some promotional materials and guest lectures. The numerous competing theories and viewpoints within the Bauhaus were encouraged by Klee.
Klee was a founding member of Die Blaue Vier (The Blue Four), who gave lectures and held exhibitions in the US on art and style in 1925. You can get a view of the thoughts of Klee on art with these Paul Klee quotes.
Paul Klee Quotes on Art
The level of Klee's creativity was at its highest. His ‘Ad Parnassum’ (1932) is regarded as his best work and the pinnacle of his pointillist aesthetic; it is also one of his most significant and meticulously executed canvases.
In 1933, his final year in Germany, he created close to 500 works. These Paul Klee quotes have said very insightful things about arts and colors in his autobiographical text, which you can know in this article.
"Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet."
"Art does not reflect what is seen, rather it makes the hidden visible."
"A drawing is simply a line going for a walk."
"Art doesn't reflect what we see; it makes us see."
“One eye sees, the other feels.”
“A line is a dot that went for a walk.”
"One eye sees, the other feels."
"Art should be like a holiday: something to give a man the opportunity to see things differently and to change his point of view."
"All the things an artist must be: poet, explorer of nature, philosopher!"
"A line is a dot that went for a walk."
"Art does not reproduce the visible; it makes visible."
"I paint in order not to cry."
"All art is a memory of age-old things, dark things, whose fragments live on in the artist."
"The more horrible this world (as today, for instance), the more abstract our art, whereas a happy world brings forth an art of the here and now."
"Like people, a picture has a skeleton, muscles, and skin."
"The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen."
"It is interesting to observe how real the object remains, in spite of all abstractions."
"Drawing is the art of taking a line for a walk."
"The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions."
"In the final analysis, a drawing simply is no longer a drawing, no matter how self-sufficient its execution may be. It is a symbol, and the more profoundly the imaginary lines of projection meet higher dimensions, the better."
“All art is a memory of age-old things, dark things, whose fragments live on in the artist.”
“Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern macht sichtbar. Art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes visible.”
“Art should be like a holiday: something to give a man the opportunity to see things differently and to change his point of view.”
“Drawing is the art of taking a line for a walk.”
“A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.”
"His [Vincent van Gogh's] line is new and yet very old, and happily not a purely European affair. It is more a question of reform than of revolution."
".. I served Beauty by drawing her enemies."
"Art should be like a holiday: something to give a man the opportunity to see things differently and to change his point of view."
"At the moment, an unpleasant feeling presses on my stomach, as though the new year of the unified, national Germany has assisted in the advent of an all too torch-parade-like sparkling wine bacchanal."
''When looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed."
"[It].... is a real declaration of love toward art. Abstraction from this world more as a game, less as a failure of the earthly. Somewhere in between. The man in love no longer drinks and eats."
“Art does not reflect what is seen, rather it makes the hidden visible.”
“Art doesn't reflect what we see; it makes us see.”
“Art makes something a lot more visible or audible.”
Paul Klee Quotes on Color
For the visible world, colors are the things that make it beautiful to look at. These Paul Klee quotes about the realm of colors are a must-read.
"Color is primarily Quality. Secondly, it is also Weight, for it has not only color value but also brilliance. Thirdly, it is Measure, for besides Quality and Weight, it has its limits, its area, and its extent, all of which may be measured."
"Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter."
“Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet.”
“I paint in order not to cry.”
“Color and I are one. I am a painter.”
“You adapt yourself to the contents of the paintbox.”
“Children also have artistic ability, and there is wisdom in there having it! The more helpless they are, the more instructive are the examples they furnish us; and they must be preserved free of corruption from an early age.”
“The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.”
“Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter.”
“The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen.”
“Like people, a picture has a skeleton, muscles and skin.”
“The creation of a work of art must of necessity, as a result of entering into the specific dimensions of pictorial art, be accompanied by distortion of the natural form. For, therein is nature reborn.”
"I can dimly recollect Kandinsky and Weisgerber, who were fellow students of mine... Kandinsky was quiet and mixed the colours on his palette with the greatest diligence and, so it seemed to me, with a kind of studiousness, peering very closely at what he was doing."
''Music, for me, is a love bewitched. / Fame as a painter? / Writer, modern poet? Bad joke. / So I have no calling, and loaf.''
“Color has got me. I no longer need to chase after it. It has got me for ever. I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour.”
“First of all, the art of living; then as my ideal profession, poetry and philosophy, and as my real profession, plastic arts; in the last resort, for lack of income, illustrations.”
“All the things an artist must be: poet, explorer of nature, philosopher!”
“He has found his style when he cannot do otherwise.”
Paul Klee Quotes on Life
An artist always has a different outlook on one thing as compared to common people, and that's what makes them different. Here, with these Paul Klee quotes, you can have a chance to see ordinary things differently from the eyes of an artist.
"Becoming is superior to being."
"There is no substitute for intuition."
“For the understanding of a picture a chair is needed. Why a chair? To prevent the legs, as they tire, from interfering with the mind.”
“Genius is the error in the system.”
“Make chance essential.”
“My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will.”
“Everything passes, and what remains of former times, what remains of life, is the spiritual. In everything we do, the claim of the Absolute is unchanging.”
"One day I will lie nowhere with an angel at my side."
"Nature can afford to be prodigal in everything, the artist must be frugal down to the last detail."
''A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller."
"The eye travels along the paths cut out for it in the work."
"In art, too, there is room enough for exact research... What was accomplished in music before the end of the eighteenth century has hardly been begun in the pictorial field."
"For the artist communication with nature remains the most essential condition. The artist is human; himself nature; part of nature within natural space."
"Our initial perplexity before nature is explained by our seeing at first the small outer branches and not penetrating to the main branches or the trunk. But once this is realized, one will perceive a repetition of the whole law even in the outermost leaf and turn it to good use."
".. I thought I had come into the clear in art when for the first time I was able to apply an abstract style to nature."
"The more horrible this world (as today, for instance), the more abstract our art, whereas a happy world brings forth an art of the here and now."
"And now an altogether revolutionary discovery: to adapt oneself to the contents of the paintbox is more important than [to] nature and its study. I must some day be able to improvise freely on the chromatic keyboard of the rows of watercolor cup."
"Kandinsky wants to organize a new society of artists. I came to feel a deep trust in him [ Kandinsky ]. He is somebody, and has an exceptionally beautiful and lucid mind."
"The law that supports space - this should be the title appropriate to one of my future pictures!“
"A tendency toward the abstract is inherent in linear expression: graphic imagery being confined to outlines has a fairy-like quality and at the same time can achieve great precision."
"It is interesting to observe how real the object remains, in spite of all abstractions."
"The father of the arrow is the thought: how do I expand my reach? Over this river? This lake? That mountain?"
"Already at the very beginning of the productive act, shortly after the initial motion to create, occurs the first counter-motion, the initial movement of receptivity. This means: the creator controls whether what he has produced so far is good."
"It is possible that a picture will move far away from Nature and yet find its way back to reality. The faculty of memory, experience at a distance produces pictorial associations."
"Color has taken possession of me; no longer do I have to chase after it, I know that it has hold of me forever... Color and I are one. I am a painter."
"As time passes I become more and more afraid of my growing love of music. I don’t understand myself. I play solo sonatas by Bach: next to them, what is Böcklin? It makes me smile."
"The work grows "stone upon stone" (additive) or The block is hewn "chip from chip" (subtractive) Both processes, building and reducing, are time-bound."
"Everything vanishes around me, and works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will."
Best Paul Klee Quotes
Here are some of the best Paul Klee quotes from the learnings and experiences of his life.
"Democracy with its semi-civilization sincerely cherishes junk. The artist's power should be spiritual. But the power of the majority is material. When these worlds meet occasionally, it is pure coincidence."
“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.”
“Everything vanishes around me, and works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will.”
“Art does not reproduce the visible; it makes visible.”
"The conviction that painting is the right profession grows stronger and stronger in me. Writing is the only other thing I still feel attracted to. Perhaps when I am mature I shall go back to it."
"First of all, the art of living; then as my ideal profession, poetry and philosophy, and as my real profession, plastic arts; in the last resort, for lack of income, illustrations."
"I am armed, I am not here, / I am in the depths, am far away … / I am far away … / I glow amidst dead."
"Reality and dream simultaneously, and myself makes a third in the party, completely at home here. This will be fine.''
"What does the artist create? Forms and spaces! How does he create them? In certain chosen proportions... O satire, you plague of intellectuals."
"The longer a line, the more of the time element it contains. Distance is time whereas a surface is apprehended more in terms of the moment.“
"To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers.“
"The beautiful, which is perhaps inseparable from art, is not after all tied to the subject, but to the pictorial representation. In this way and in no other does art overcome the ugly without avoiding it."
“A line comes into being. It goes out for a walk, so to speak, aimlessly for the sake of the walk.”
“A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller.”
"The changeover was complete; in the summer of 1907 I devoted myself entirely to the appearance of nature and upon these studies built my black-and-white landscapes on glass, 1907/1908."
"Art does not reproduce what we see. It makes us see."
"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."
"The main thing now is not to paint precociously but to be, or at least become, an individual."
"I cannot be grasped in the here and now. For I reside just as much with the dead as with the unborn. Somewhat closer to the heart of creation than usual. But not nearly close enough. The end has met the beginning."
"He [in general] has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise, i. e., cannot do something else."
"The pictorial work was born of movement, is itself recorded movement, and is assimilated through movement (eye muscles)."
"The work as human action (genesis) is productive as well as receptive. It is continuity."
"Since not even sufficient time for my main business remains to me. Production is taking a larger magnitude at a faster tempo, and can no longer wholly keep up with these children. They [very probably: his new art] issue forth."
"Now Delaunay wrote and sent me an article by himself about himself."
"You know what I want to become temporarily today: a painter? No. A simple and common designer. But a biting one. I would like to deride humanity, nothing less. And this with the simplest means, in black and white. At the same time - oh blasphemy - I would like to attack our Lord adequately."
"Polyphonic painting is superior to music in that, here, the time element becomes a spatial element. The notion of simultaneity stands out even more richly."
Editorial credit: neftali / Shutterstock.com
