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Quote by Paul Klee

“All the things an artist must be: poet, explorer of nature, philosopher!”

Quote by Paul Klee

Book:The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918

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The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918

This book presents a rare glimpse into the thoughts and experiences of the renowned artist Paul Klee, chronicling his artistic journey from 1898 to 1918. The diaries offer insights into Klee's creative process, his interactions with other artists, and his evolving artistic vision. more

Author

Paul Klee was a Swiss-born German expressionist painter known for his unique style and color usage. His works combined abstract and representational elements and often carried symbolic meanings. Klee's influence on the art world was profound, and he is considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century. more

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“Polyphonic painting is superior to music in that there, the time element becomes a spatial element. The notion of simultaneity stands out even more richly.”

Painting Elements Notion Superiors Standing Out Spatial

Book:The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918

Source: The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918

“We document, explain, justify, construct, organize: these are good things, but we do not succeed in coming to the whole. But we may as well calm down: construction is not absolute. Our virtue is this: by cultivating the exact we have laid the foundations for a science of art, including the unknown X.”

Wells May Art Whole Virtue Succeed Absolutes Foundation Good Things Including Calm Justify Construction Documents Organize Constructs Cultivating Calm Down

Author:Paul Klee

“It is interesting to observe how real the object remains, in spite of all abstractions.”

Real Interesting Objects Remains Spite Abstraction

Book:Paul Klee Notebooks: The thinking eye

Source: Paul Klee Notebooks: The thinking eye

“It is possible that a picture will move far away from Nature and yet find its way back to reality. The faculty of memory, experience at a distance produces pictorial associations.”

Way Reality Moving Memories Produce Distance Faculty Association Far Away Pictorial Back To Reality

Book:Paul Klee notebooks

Source: Paul Klee notebooks

“The longer a line, the more of the time element it contains. Distance is time whereas a surface is apprehended more in terms of the moment.”

Moments Term Lines Elements Distance Surface

Book:Paul Klee notebooks

Source: Paul Klee notebooks

“A tendency toward the abstract is inherent in linear expression: graphic imagery being confined to outlines has a fairy-like quality and at the same time can achieve great precision.”

Quality Achieve Expression Tendencies Abstract Fairy Inherent Imagery Confined Graphic Outlines Precision Linear

Book:Paul Klee: Watercolors, Drawings, Writings

Source: Paul Klee: Watercolors, Drawings, Writings

“The pictorial work was born of movement, is itself recorded movement, and is assimilated through movement (eye muscles).”

Eye Born Movement Muscles Pictorial

Book:Creative Confession - Paul Klee

Source: Creative Confession - Paul Klee

“Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things. It is a completely physical language, the words of which consist of all visible objects. An object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is not within the realm of painting.”

Art Real Language Objects Painting Realms Abstract Visible Concrete Representation

Author:Gustave Courbet

“On the left is the realist tradition of the 19th century, with its impulse to social description, radical criticism and meditation on things as they are... culminating in Courbet at his mightiest (The Studio, The Funeral at Ornans and a portrait of a trout that has more death in it than Rubens could get in a whole Crucifixion).”

Whole Left Social Meditation Century Tradition Criticism Studios Radical Impulse Description Funeral Portraits 19th Century Realist Crucifixion Trout Rubens

Author:Gustave Courbet

“No longer can we consider what the artist does to be a self-contained activity, mysteriously inspired from above, unrelated and unrelatable to other human activities. Instead, we recognize the exalted kind of seeing that leads to the creation of great art as an outgrowth of the humbler and more common activity of the eyes in everyday life. Just as the prosaic search for information is "artistic" because it involves giving and finding shape and meaning, so the artist's conceiving is an instrument of life, a refined way of understanding who and where we are.”

Source: Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye