“Harmony makes small things grow, lack of it makes great things decay.” – Sallust
Paul Klee. “Hermitage”. 1918. Watercolor on chalk ground. 18.3 x 25.4 cm. Paul Klee Foundation, Kunstmuseum, Berne, Switzerland.
For Art Sunday, the art of Paul Klee, with one of my favourite paintings of his. Paul Klee was born in Munchenbuchsee, Switzerland in 1879. He studied art at the Munich Academy of Fine Art (1898-1901) and later became associated with the Blaue Reiter group. Artists in the group believed that they had a responsibility to "heal the gaping wound that separates man from his environment".
Klee was living in Germany during the First World War and in 1916 was called up by the German Army. He was not sent to the front-line and spent some of his time painting aeroplanes. His war experiences appeared in his book, Diaries: 1898-1918.
After the Armistice Klee taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau. Klee was a brilliant and undogmatic teacher and a stimulating writer on art. The most important book Klee wrote during this period was, Pedagogical Stetchbook (1925).
With the emergence of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany, Klee returned to Switzerland. A large number of his paintings on display in Germany were confiscated by the Nazis as degenerate. The growth of fascism in Europe affected Klee badly and he began to suffer from acute depression. In 1935 Klee developed scleroderma, a rare debilitating disease. Paul Klee died in 1940.
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