Paul Klee: An influence on painting

Paul Klee’s exploration of formal systematisation and geometric reduction (from an early age) has made a lasting impression on my approach to painting and construction. 

His  interest in and organisation of gardens (for example Mild Tropical Landscape 1918) architecture, strange windows, and ancient sound have influenced the rhythmic unity within my practice. 

An instinctive use of repetition and intervals (patchworks of colour) are cleverly combined with panoramic structure. I am fascinated with his use of labyrinthine and unexpected combinations of contrasting tone and material concerns. These aspects have played into my approach to composition and structural decisions. 

Flat exotic bands of blazing colour are brilliantly interplayed with a swinging rhythm (subtly echoed in all parts of his approach). The colour and pattern are often developed in a delicate and mysterious way, and perhaps this natural ability is a feature I want to hold onto in my thinking about painting. 

His balanced use of musicality is everywhere within his use of striation of colour. The sense of celebration feels important for me in the way he searches for the essence and vitality in works such as Hauptweg und Nebenwege (Highway and Byways), painted in 1929. 

 

 

Hauptweg und Nebenwege, Oil on canvas, Museum Ludwig, Cologne

 

I am drawn to the intangible and intimate nature in Paul Klee’s work. The material concerns pull you into surface implications and the complex layering systems he develops (which we are not sure how he arrives at) and densely layered surface. Perhaps this is much to do with his own personal hierarchy of compositional possibilities. 

 

Laurence Noga 

2023