Metamorphose (in der art von Daphne)

Artist Paul Klee (1879 - 1940)

Date1935

MediumGouache on cardboard

Dimensions22.5 x 32 cm

ClassificationsGouaches

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Bequest of Mr C. Bewley, 1969.

Object number1300

DescriptionPaul Klee produced nearly ten thousand works on paper during his lifetime. A gifted artist, musician and teacher, a diversity of influences informed his thinking and artistic style including Cubism, metaphysics and scientific developments. Music was also a pervasive influence in his art. He was associated with Der Blaue Reiter and he also admired primitive art and the art of children which he believed exemplified an unselfconscious directness of expression. His exposure to north-African light during a visit to Tunisia in 1914 was a revelation to him and heightened his life-long appreciation of colour. From 1921-31 Klee taught at the Bauhaus School. The Thinking Eye and The Nature of Nature are among his published writings. In 1933, he was dismissed from a teaching post at the Düsseldorf Academy by the Nazis who branded his art as degenerate.

Klee believed that 'reality is a never ending metamorphosis' and thematically this work reflects Klee's own life at this time, which was in a state of flux. in 1935 he was dismissed from the Düsseldorf Academy by the Nazis, who branded his art as degenerate, and his forced departure from Germany for Switzerland was compounded by deteriorating health. (JO'D)

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