Paul Klee Quotes

Art does not render what is visible, but renders visible.

But by way of consolation: it is valueless to paint premature things, what counts is to be a personality, or at least to become one. The domination of life is one of the basic conditions of productive expression. For me this is surely the case; when I am depressed I am unable even to think about it – and this holds true for painting, sculpture, tragedy, or music. But I believe that pictures alone will abundantly fill out this one life.

Music, for me, is a love bewitched. / Fame as a painter? / Writer, modern poet? Bad joke. / So I have no calling, and loaf.

Structural concept in nature:
The grouping of the smallest recognizable entities in matter:
Bone matter is cellular or tubular. Ligament structure is a sinuous-fibrous web.
Tendons are continuous with the connective tissue of the muscle, strengthened by cross grain.

I'll provide it if I'm officially asked to do so but it's below my dignity to initiate action against such primitive accusations. For even if I were a Jew, and did come from Galicia, this would alter neither my own worth nor that of my work one iota. My personal point of view is that a Jew and a foreigner is of no less intrinsic value than a German and a native, and I must not abandon it of my own accord, for if I did I would appear to posterity in an absurd light. I would rather cause myself trouble than become the tragicomic figure of one striving for the favour of those in power.

After all, it's rather difficult to achieve the exact minimum, and it involves risks.

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.

Graphic work as the expressive movement of the hand holding the recording pencil.. ..is so fundamentally different from dealing with tone and color that one can use this technique quite well in the dark, even in the blackest night. On the other hand, tone (movement from light to dark) presupposes some light, and color presupposes a great deal of light.

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..

Twenty-one years old! I never doubted my vital force. But how is it to fare with my chosen art? The recognition that at bottom I am a poet, after all, should be no hindrance in the plastic arts! And should I really have to be a poet, Lord knows what else I should desire. Certainly, a sea swells within me, for I feel. It is a hopeless state, to feel in such a way that the storm rages on all sides at once and that nowhere is a lord who commands the chaos.

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.

I have now reached the point where I can look over the great art of antiquity and its Renaissance. But, for myself, I cannot find any artistic connection with our own times. And to want to create something outside of one's own age strikes me as suspect. Great perplexity. This is why I am again all on the side of satire. Am I to be completely absorbed by it once more? For the time being it is my only creed. Perhaps I shall never become positive? In any case, I will defend myself like a wild beast.

Colour and I are one.

Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern Kunst macht sichtbar.

Simple motion strikes us as banal. The time element must be eliminated. Yesterday and tomorrow as simultaneous. In music, polyphony helped to some extent to satisfy this need. A quintet as in 'Don Giovanni' is closer to us than the epic motion in 'Tristan [und Isolde]'. Mozart and Bach are more modern than the [music of the] nineteenth century.