Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a Swiss painter and a German painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented with and eventually mastered color theory, and wrote extensively about it; his lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre), published in English as the Paul Klee Notebooks, are considered so important for modern art that they are compared to the importance that Leonardo da Vinci's A Treatise on Painting had for Renaissance. He and his colleague , the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both taught at the German Bauhaus school of art, design and architecture. His works reflect his dry humour and his sometimes childlike perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and his musicality.
i find that kids books can explain artists i don't understand better than thick adult volumes going deep into the life and place of an artist, James Warola's bio of his uncle explained more of his art than the half dozen adult books about him i'd read. But this book just leaves me cold on Paul Klee, i don't see a reason for his work to have any respect.
I really wanted to like this, but it just didn't work for me.
However, I find the work "The Gate to the Depths" intriguing. Von Shemm writes as if the dark shape in the middle recedes, like the staircase into a basement. My eyes kept seeing it advance... so, I thought about it, and decided that maybe Klee was doing a sort of an optical illusion, and he sees it both ways... and so, when we see it advance, Klee hopes that we see it as a sort of a reflection, giving the interpretation 'to the depths of our soul.'