Paul Klee: “Art does not reproduce the visible, rather, it makes visible”

Paul Klee

In the Mind of Great Artists

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“Art does not reproduce the visible, rather, it makes visible.”
Paul Klee

We do not need art to show us the world we can see at first sight. We need it to enrich our look and be able to see other things. We need it to show us universes, other beauties and truths.

Art makes visible what was invisible.

When Klee wrote this phrase, around 1920, art no longer represented nature faithfully (in general the exterior world of the artist), no longer imitated it. Art started to “express” instead of “reproducing.”

We may like an artist or not, what is important is if our experience is enriched, if they show us another way to contemplate, their own vision of things, and beauty in things we did not take into account, or in places where we had not found it before. The invisible beauty of things.

Artists show us other perspectives, other looks. We recover our sense of wonder.

Klee is one of the parents of abstraction. His works are about what is elemental. At first sight, his paintings seem to be childish, primitive. His drawing retrocedes to the simplest, intuitive and ends penetrating the essence. Sometimes he even painted with the left hand to free his creativity.

Modern artists look for the “truth.” Klee, who was a theorist and published the famous treatise on modern art, was also aware of something very simple: truth Is not in appearances but in depth.

Image: Fish Magic (1925)

Recommended links:

The Bauhaus.

In the mind of Kandinsky.

Kandinsky and the Biomorphic Abstraction.

The Suprematist Compositions of Malévich.

When does Modern Art Start?

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