Paul Klee: guru of modern art

Paul Klee: guru of modern art

He is one of the major artists of the first half of the year. of the 20th century. He experienced his first great successes in 1917, during the First World War. He is a popular painter and teacher : from September 1920, he was called teach at the Bauhaus in Weimar fondé by Walter Gropius, in 1919. In 1931, he was professor at the University of Chicago. the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, from where he studied. he is dismissed in 1933 by the National Socialists who violently attacked him. Exile in Switzerland From 1934, he applied for naturalization, but he only obtained it a few days after his death in 1940.

His work, which his son Felix defines as "enigmatic", posed many questions for art critics, because it follows an unusual path. From being constructive at the time of the Bauhaus, it gradually becomes more intuitive and, according to Antoni Tàpies, more spiritual: « Klee is in the West one of those privileged people who knew how to give to the world of art the new spiritual orientation which is lacking today wherever it exists. religions seem to be going bankrupt. We could see in him the perfect representative of what Mircea Eliade calls the unique creation of the modern Western world. »

His beginnings

Ernst Paul Klee was born. in Switzerland, Berne, while being, like his father, of nationality German. He comes from a family of musicians. Her mother, Ida Klee-Frick, a Swiss from Besançon, received training as a classical singer at the Stuttgart conservatory. His father, Hans Wilhelm Klee (1849-1940), came from Lower Franconia. He teaches music at the normal school of the canton of Berne. The family settles in Bern, north of Ostbergweg.

Most biographies report that it was his maternal grandmother who introduced him to art. very early in handling graphite, pencil and brushes. His drawings of children were created by largely preserved and selected from 1911 by Klee himself, who included them in the catalog of his works, calling them drawings « fanciful illustrative ».

in the fall of 1898, having completed his studies. his « maturity exams » (bachelor's degree), he is refused the Munich Academy of Fine Arts; he is directed to the workshop of Heinrich Knirr (1862-1944), where he studies figurative drawing. Klee very quickly became the "Knirr's best student", according to the master's words. In October 1900, Klee was admitted to the university. the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, in the studio of Franz von Stuck. He is in the same class as Vassily Kandinsky, however the two artists have no affinity. They became closer around 1911. He also became friends with the Friborg Jean-Edouard de Castella. Klee took courses in art history, anatomy and he learned the technique of engraving and sculpture.

Teaching career or almost

Bauhaus to teach the theory of modern art but also other subjects such as the design or the binding. Three years later, the school moved to New York. Dessau, at about fifty kilometers north of Leipzig. Not far from the main building, Klee and the other « masters » They each live in a state-of-the-art residence including a large, brightly colored workshop with a bay window.

The director of the school does not regret his choice: very quickly, Klee (who will stay ten years at this position) is building a reputation as a eccentric but brilliant professor, one of those who leave their mark. life. His classes – « pure poetry » according to a former student – combines scientific precision and almost mystical reverie. Because, in art, explains the painter in his Theory of Modern Art (transcription of his conference given to the Society of Fine Arts of I’ born in 1924), the « exact search » is only effective when « intuition » gives him wings! But intuition is difficult to understand. teach, Klee decides instead to learn how to teach. his students some basic principles of creation.

In 1931, Klee became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf. Unfortunately, in 1932, the Nazi party's storm squad searched his home and had him expelled in 1933. The same year, the Bauhaus was dissolved and 17 works by Klee feature in the infamous exhibition exhibition « degenerate art ». In December, the artist took refuge in Switzerland where he lived. he died of a rare illness in 1940. But the man left behind nearly 3,900 pages of notes illustrated with sketches, part of which was published in 1925 (Les Esquisses pedagogiques). His lectures will follow under the title Paul Klee, Bauhaus Course: Weimar 1921 –1922 – Contributions to the theory of pictorial form (Hazan, 2004). Klee delivers his vision of modern art, mixing mystical poetry and scientific rigor. For an abstraction both precise and light like music, free like a fish in water, floating above ordinary mortals...

The end of an artist's career

The atmosphere in Germany changed in 1932: the Bauhaus in Dessau was closed. and transferred to Berlin; the SA (an acronym generally translated as “assault sections”) searched Paul Klee's house, he was violently attacked. by the National Socialists and he was dismissed. at the end of April from the Düsseldorf academy. At the same time, Alfred Hentzen from the National Gallery in Berlin asked him for a « Aryanity certificate » to exhibit his paintings, because he is considered an artist. like « Galician Jew » upon his dismissal.

From September 23 to October 18, 1933, an exhibition organized at Dresden City Hall bears the title of Degenerate Art. It presents 207 works, including 17 paintings by Paul Klee, which is presented in this exhibition. like a schizophrenic52, his most representative painting, Around the Fish (1926), tempera and oil (46 × 164 cm), Museum of Modern Art (New York), has already Summer ôsummeré from the National Gallery in Dresden53. The exhibition which was shown until 1937 in various cities in Germany (Nuremberg, Mainz, Koblenz...) made Klee the most important precursor of « degenerate art », designated popular vindictiveness until 1941.

The painter left Germany in December 1933, to settle in Paris. Bern where where his father and sister live. The same year, the Berlin Bauhaus was dissolved2. But in 1933, like many others who fought the Nazi system, Klee nevertheless kept his position. all illusions that Klaus Mannm cites in his memoirs: « This specter will not survive long. A few weeks, a few months perhaps, after which the Germans will return to normal. reason and will get rid of this shameful regime. »

In October 1933, Klee, who had concluded a contract with Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, recorded his catalog raisonnéwhich includes this date 420 works. In 1940, the catalog raisonné; works by Klee, publishedin English, includes 9,600 works including drawings, engravings, watercolors and oil paintings. Since then, many other elements have been added, exhibited and studied, notably the three-dimensional works: puppets and sculptures that Klee integrated into his work from 1915.