Paul Klee: Making Visible

exhibition at Tate Modern
Eager to see this as Klee was one of the principal 20th century artists for whom the spiritual in art was pre-eminent, and the exhibition highlighted this aspect of his work. It began with and was curated around his 1920 declaration:

'Today we reveal the reality that is behind visible things, thus expressing the belief that the visible world is merely and isolated case in relation to the universe and that there are other more latent realities.'

I'd done some research beforehand (his 'On modern art' lecture of 1924) to try to understand what this approach meant for him.  The impression I formed was that he saw himself as in touch with sub-conscious depths of experience, what he called a 'secret place where primeval power nurtures all evolution', and that he brought up from that, like a tree draws up from its roots, experiences that he translated, through his visual practice into forms that held colour and light - he seemed to place great value on lucidity (light, clarity. . . )

I wanted to find out how he communicated this in the paintings on show:

• the forms often emerge out of a black or dark background
• clustered shapes are recognisable as e.g. a town (the hint of a roof in a triangular couple of shapes amidst squares and rectangles) but it is more the 'felt sense' of the town that is communicated
• colour pushed to its limit in terms of depth or radiance or joyful in its combinations
• diaphanous forms suggesting the immaterial, or less material than perception gives rise to
• the inclusion of moon and star forms in amongst terrestrial ones
• liveliness of composition, inanimate forms seeming to take on life

• And for me why this is so powerful is that authentic (historic personal) experience is being communicated, not purely decorative, fanciful.  Also the effect on me - at times I felt almost painfully re-connected to a depth of experience that I am often out of touch with.

I'm curious to find out if Klee explained his process in relation to a particular painting - at the moment there is a gap for me between what he said about his work in general and my personal experience.  Am I seeing what he wanted me to see?

And some interesting quotes up on the gallery walls:

'Nobody would affirm that the tree grows its crown in the image of its roots.  Between above and below can be no mirrored reflection.'

The artist is 'a creature on a star amongst stars' (Ways of study 1923)

'We construct and keep on constructing but intuition is a good thing. You can do a good deal without it but not everything. Where intuition is combined with exact research it speeds up the progress of research.  Exactitude winged by intuition is at times best.' 

(Experiences in the realm of art 1928)

'Klee, when beginning a painting, had the excitement of a Columbus moving to the disc of a new continent. he had a frightened presentiment, just a vague sense of the right course.'  (Jankel Adler, Memories of Paul Klee 1942.

That step into the unknown. . . And Klee navigated slowly, with great caution, contemplating at length before he placed a brushstroke on the canvass.

A nice parallel between his Burdened Children of 1930 and Brice Marden's recent work - the thick coiling tubey lines.