How to Understand the Meaning Behind Symbols and Images in Paul Klee’s Art: 4 Paintings and 1 Etching
The images of Klee’s work mentioned here should be easily accessible by going to www.google.com, clicking on the Images link, then putting the title of the artwork in quotes and searching for it). The 5 pieces discussed and/or mentioned in this article include Two Men Meet, Each Believing the Other to Be of Higher Rank (1903), Red and White Domes (1914), The Golden Fish (1925), Fish Magic, (1925), and Ad Parnassum (1932).
To understand Paul Klee’s paintings, we must first know a little bit about his personality and life. Klee was a fairly introverted Swiss Expressionist painter who lived from 1879 to 1941. Klee grew up in a very musical family, and played the violin in his youth. He had a hard time deciding whether to major in art or music in college, but finally chose art. Because of this, he elects to describe many of his paintings in musical terms, and consciously tries to paint in a way that evokes a sense of musicality (immaterial and flowing). Klee died in 1940 just at the start of WWII, the victim of a collagen disease (disease affecting the connecting tissue, i.e. muscles) called scleroderma . His art contains a mix of influences, ranging from surrealism to cubism to primitive/child’s art.
Klee’s etching from 1903, Two Men Meet, Each Believing the Other to Be of Higher Rank, depicts two naked men bowing at each other in a remote wasteland. The etching is Klee’s way of voicing his displeasure at the hierarchical system of Central Europe where he lived. He considers the strict system of rank ridiculous and degrading. The men in the etching are both bowing to one another in case either one of them wears a higher-ranking uniform when clothed.
They are trying to follow the rules that their society dictates, but end up belittling themselves and looking stupid, as they are both naked, and blindly following what Klee considers to be a nonsensical custom. The etching does not condemn a hierarchical system that applies merely to Central Europe and the military, however – they are a meaningful commentary on all sorts of pointless ranking systems that debase the worth of man in the name of honoring his fellow man as “greater” or more deserving of obedience and respect than he all over the world.
Klee’s painting The Golden Fish, completed in 1925, shows a vibrant golden fish, larger than all the other darker fish, purposefully staying out of its way. The fish has runes all over its body, and the ocean around it contains barely perceptible images of fertility.
Fish Magic, yet another fish piece Klee completed in 1925, is an oil and watercolor depicting what seems to be a clock, planets, a clown, and a gesturing figure. Directly in its center, it contains a large square piece of extra material haphazardly affixed to the canvas with glue. It is unclear whether Klee put it there solely to cover up a mistake and only then began to use it for artistic purposes, or had the intention of placing it on the canvas for artistic effect all along. In either case, the presence of a dark reflection of curtains in the upper left of the square reveals Klee’s intent to have the patch serve as a sort of picture within a picture.
The painting differs from his other fish paintings in that it is the only one that includes images of things not usually found in the sea. For example, in the very center of the painting, there is the yellow face of a clock, formed of a circle larger than the planet-like images behind it to the upper left. This celestial crescent and circle most likely represent the moon and the sun, frequent images in Klee’s work. Some critics theorize that Klee is comparing finite earthly time to endless celestial time, one of his common themes. Upon closer examination, the face of the clock itself does not contain the normal numbers found on a clock (3, 6, 9, 12) but 1, 2, 5, and 9. When rearranged, these letters form the year 1925, the year when Klee created the painting, another commentary on time.
The theme of time continues with the church steeple seemingly ensnared by a fishing net in the middle of Fish Magic. Klee seems to be pointing out that all humans, as well as their creations, are forced to obey the laws of time, ironically also one of their own ideas. Klee’s painting perhaps implies that time is greater than the union of two souls, of religion, and of all manmade ideas and constructs. Time is even greater than itself, as it must obey its own rules.
Both clocks and fish are favorite themes of Klee’s. Sometimes the fish Klee paints literally represent themselves – solely fish. However, they often mean more. Klee’s studies in natural history aroused in him a great love of fish because of their status as a numerous and significant group of creatures, as well as the mysterious, invisible, and fleeting lives they lived mostly unobserved below the surface of the ocean. Last but not least, it is well-documented by Klee himself as well as relatives that he adored fishing and engaged in it frequently. Klee considered fish to be a link between the oldest, most simple orders of living species and the more modern, complex ones (those with a more varied selection of cells and limbs).
Consequently, some of his fish, such as the three largest in Fish Magic, seem to be comprised very basically of repeating patterns of scales. The flowers in the painting are also simply and wholly composed of repeated sections of petals and leaves. Both evidence the unevolved organic unity Klee felt fish represented.
Klee’s work is known for its two-faced and twin-like images, but Fish Magic contains a rare variation on these: the double-profiled image. Located here below the steeple and slightly to the right, the image encompasses two moods – on the right, enthusiasm and joy, with a waving arm and a heart-shaped mouth, and on the left, a limp arm and a mouth in the shape of a line, evoking a somber, more contemplative expression. The happier profile is focused on the simplicity and innocence of the fish swimming, unaware of their mortality and content to perpetuate their species with no regard to their individual demise. The more grave profile is focused on the enmeshed steeple and clock, as if aware of its mortality and unable to shake its dread. The piece of extra material added to the canvas further emphasizes the division between the two profiles.
Ad Parnassum, an oil on canvas painting Klee finished in 1932, is a perfect example of his “magic square” technique. The painting was influenced by his studies in comparative anatomy, anthropology, and natural history. His studies in these areas convinced Klee that nature was formed of constantly changing, moving pieces. Klee wanted to represent this, his personal view of nature, in his paintings, so he set about developing an orderly system to do so. The primary rule of the system was that all the colors he used in his paintings revolved around three basic colors that always took center stage: red, yellow, and blue. When Klee began experimenting with this system, he used what he termed “magic squares” in his paintings to implement his ideas. These squares were partially inspired by his visit to Tunisia in 1914, during which he saw colorful mosaics that convinced him of the purity of color and his destiny as a painter. (Klee’s 1914 watercolor Red and White Domes was produced during this period.)
The magic squares in Ad Parnassum form an image that may represent one or all of many concepts: Mount Parnassus (where Apollo and the Muses live), the Pyramids Klee saw when he was in Egypt, and a mountain near where Klee lived. Ad Parnassum was the end of a series of paintings incorporating the “magic square” technique that Klee produced from 1923 to 1932.
Stay tuned for Part II, coming soon and explaining symbolism and intent in Paul Klee’s Around the Fish (1926), Metamorphose (1936), Diana in the Autumn Wind (1934), and Death and Fire (1940).
