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Lot Essay
"The sun has a dark power. The colorful clarity on shore full of promise. Macke too feels it. We both know that we shall work well here"
- Paul Klee (The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918, Berkeley, 1964, p. 286).
Painted in early 1916, Klee's Die Sonne welche die Welt der Farben schon vorfindet is an intricate jewel-like watercolor which fits into a series of works that reflects the artist's fascination with Islamic culture. In the foreground a playfully stylized figure appears to wear a red ‘chechia,’ the national hat of Tunisia, while along the left edge, another figure wears a traditional striped headscarf. Two years before the present work was executed, Klee had visited Tunisia with his friends and Blaue Reiter colleagues August Macke and Louis Moilliet, a trip that would have a lasting influence on his artistic output. Long after his return to Munich and later at the Bauhaus, he produced works with titles inspired by the Orient such as Kleine Vignette an Aegypten (1918, 33; The Paul Klee Foundation, no. 1880), Schleiertanz (1920, 34; The Paul Klee Foundation, no. 2379) and Orientalischer Lustgarten (1925, 131; The Paul Klee Foundation, no. 3812).
It is likely that Die Sonne welche die Welt der Farben schon vorfindet was painted just before Klee was conscripted into the German Army. The First World War was to last another two and a half years. But Klee was safe, not something he could have counted on when he was called up for service on 11 March 1916. On the same day he received his draft notice, a telegram arrived from Maria Marc with the terrible news that her husband Franz—Klee’s close friend and fellow painter in the Blaue Reiter—had been killed on 4 March at Verdun. The battles in France during the early weeks of the war had also claimed the life of August Macke, with whom Klee had taken his revelatory journey to Tunisia. Klee reported for training in the Bavarian infantry reserves, which before long might have destined him, too, to end up a casualty on the front lines.
Fortunately, Klee was reassigned in August 1916 to clerical duties with an air force reserve unit in Schleissheim, and in January 1917 he was attached to the Royal Bavarian Flying School in Gersthofen. His duties included painting camouflage on warplanes, then transporting them by rail to destinations near the front lines. Klee was rarely in danger, however, and could even find time to paint when he was back in Gersthofen, where he rented a room off-base in which to work. He contributed to group shows and shared dual billing in exhibitions at Herwarth Walden’s gallery Der Sturm, Berlin, in March 1916 and February 1917, events which the artist counted as his first significant successes.
Hardly any of Klee’s wartime works allude to the ongoing conflict, which probably accounted in part for their appeal to collectors at that time. “Using a simple vocabulary of geometric forms and sensitive, vibrant colors,” Jürgen Glaesemer has written, “he invented his own cosmic landscapes, with animate creatures, animals, plants, and heavenly bodies of all kinds. His simple forms and evocative colors give rise to a multitude of combinations; independent life is brought into being, and with seeming inadvertence, everything joins to everything else in constantly changing arrangements” (Paul Klee: The Colored Works in the Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, 1979, p. 42).
- Paul Klee (The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918, Berkeley, 1964, p. 286).
Painted in early 1916, Klee's Die Sonne welche die Welt der Farben schon vorfindet is an intricate jewel-like watercolor which fits into a series of works that reflects the artist's fascination with Islamic culture. In the foreground a playfully stylized figure appears to wear a red ‘chechia,’ the national hat of Tunisia, while along the left edge, another figure wears a traditional striped headscarf. Two years before the present work was executed, Klee had visited Tunisia with his friends and Blaue Reiter colleagues August Macke and Louis Moilliet, a trip that would have a lasting influence on his artistic output. Long after his return to Munich and later at the Bauhaus, he produced works with titles inspired by the Orient such as Kleine Vignette an Aegypten (1918, 33; The Paul Klee Foundation, no. 1880), Schleiertanz (1920, 34; The Paul Klee Foundation, no. 2379) and Orientalischer Lustgarten (1925, 131; The Paul Klee Foundation, no. 3812).
It is likely that Die Sonne welche die Welt der Farben schon vorfindet was painted just before Klee was conscripted into the German Army. The First World War was to last another two and a half years. But Klee was safe, not something he could have counted on when he was called up for service on 11 March 1916. On the same day he received his draft notice, a telegram arrived from Maria Marc with the terrible news that her husband Franz—Klee’s close friend and fellow painter in the Blaue Reiter—had been killed on 4 March at Verdun. The battles in France during the early weeks of the war had also claimed the life of August Macke, with whom Klee had taken his revelatory journey to Tunisia. Klee reported for training in the Bavarian infantry reserves, which before long might have destined him, too, to end up a casualty on the front lines.
Fortunately, Klee was reassigned in August 1916 to clerical duties with an air force reserve unit in Schleissheim, and in January 1917 he was attached to the Royal Bavarian Flying School in Gersthofen. His duties included painting camouflage on warplanes, then transporting them by rail to destinations near the front lines. Klee was rarely in danger, however, and could even find time to paint when he was back in Gersthofen, where he rented a room off-base in which to work. He contributed to group shows and shared dual billing in exhibitions at Herwarth Walden’s gallery Der Sturm, Berlin, in March 1916 and February 1917, events which the artist counted as his first significant successes.
Hardly any of Klee’s wartime works allude to the ongoing conflict, which probably accounted in part for their appeal to collectors at that time. “Using a simple vocabulary of geometric forms and sensitive, vibrant colors,” Jürgen Glaesemer has written, “he invented his own cosmic landscapes, with animate creatures, animals, plants, and heavenly bodies of all kinds. His simple forms and evocative colors give rise to a multitude of combinations; independent life is brought into being, and with seeming inadvertence, everything joins to everything else in constantly changing arrangements” (Paul Klee: The Colored Works in the Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, 1979, p. 42).