Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Paul Klee

103 quotes

“Genesis as formal motion is the essential thing in a work. In the beginning the motif, insertion of energy, sperm. Works as shaping of form in the material sense: the primitive female component. Works as form - determining sperm: the primitive female component. My drawings belong to the male realm.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote (1912), # 931, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
“[commenting French Cubist art] ..Trees are violated, humans become incapable of life; there is a coercion that leads to the un-recognazibility of the object, to a picture-puzzle. For here what counts is not a profane law, but a law of art.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote (April 1912); as cited in Kandinsky and Klee in Tunisia, Roger Benjamin & Cristina Ashjian; Univ of California Press, 2015, p. 106
“The shaping of form is weak in energy in comparison with the determining of form. The final consequence of both ways of forming is form. From the ways to the end. From activity to the accomplished. From the genuinely living thing to the objective thing. In the beginning the male speciality, the energetic stimulus. Then the fleshly growth of the egg. Or: first the bright flash of lightning, then the raining cloud. When is the spirit at its purest? In the beginning. Here, work that becomes (dual). There, work that is.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry (1913), # 944; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee - Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter
“The harbor and city.. ..were behind us [Klee's first glimpse of Tunis], slightly hidden. First, we passed down a long canal. On shore, very close, our first Arabs. 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 (1879–1940) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary-note, 7 April 1914; as quoted by June Taboroff, on 'AramcoWorld', May, June 1991
“Reality and dream simultaneously, and myself makes a third in the party, completely at home here. This will be fine.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary-note, 7 April 1914; as quoted by June Taboroff, on 'AramcoWorld', May, June 1991
“Tunis. My head is full of the impressions of last night's walk. Art-Nature-Self. Went to work at once and painted in watercolour in the Arab quarter. Began the synthesis of urban architecture and pictorial architecture. Not yet pure, but quite attractive, somewhat too much of the mood, the enthusiasm of traveling in it-the Self, in a word. Things will no doubt get more objective later, once the intoxication has worn off a bit.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary-note, 7 April 1914; # 926-f; as cited by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter
“Color has taken possession of me; no longer do I have to chase after it, I know that it has hold of me forever.. .Color and I are one. I am a painter.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary-note (Tunisia, 16 April 1914), # 926; as quoted by Suzanne Partsch in Klee (reissue), Benedikt Taschen, Cologne, 2007 - ISBN 978-3-8228-6361-9, p. 20
“another and longer variant: I now abandon work. It penetrated so deeply and so gently into me, I feel it and it gives me confidence in myself without effort. Color possesses me. I don’t have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Colour and I are one. I am a painter.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1898 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote (Tunisia, 16 April 1914), # 926, in: The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918, transl. Pierre B. Schneider, R.Y. Zachary and Max Knight; Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1964
“The more horrible this world (as today, for instance), the more abstract our art, whereas a happy world brings forth an art of the here and now.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1915 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry (1915), # 951 , in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
“Simple motion strikes us as banal. The time element must be eliminated. Yesterday and tomorrow as simultaneous. In music, polyphony helped to some extent to satisfy this need. A quintet as in 'Don Giovanni' is closer to us than the epic motion in [[w:Tristan und Isolde|'Tristan [und Isolde]']]. Mozart and Bach are more modern than the [music of the] nineteenth century.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1081 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote (July 1917), # 1081, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
“Polyphonic painting is superior to music in that, here, the time element becomes a spatial element. The notion of simultaneity stands out even more richly.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Paul Klee, quote from 'Diaries III', 1917; as quoted in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016
“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.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement of 1917; as quoted in Teaching at the Bauhaus (2000) by Rainer Wick and Gabriele Diana Grawe, p. 231
“Everything vanishes around me, and works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1104 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry (January/February 1918), # 1104, The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918 (p. 387)
“..I thought I had come into the clear in art when for the first time I was able to apply an abstract style to nature.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Paul Klee, in an autobiographical text for Wilhelm Hausenstein, 1919; as quoted in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016
“I can dimly recollect Kandinsky and Weisgerber, who were fellow students of mine.. .Kandinsky was quiet and mixed the colours on his palette with the greatest diligence and, so it seemed to me, with a kind of studiousness, peering very closely at what he was doing.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Klee in a autobiographical text for Wilhelm Hausenstein, 1919; as quoted in Klee & Kandinsky, 2015 exhibition text – exposition, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, from 21 October 2015 to 24 January 2016: on
“I cannot be grasped in the here and now. For I reside just as much with the dead as with the unborn. Somewhat closer to the heart of creation than usual. But not nearly close enough. The end has met the beginning.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Exhibition catalogue, Galerie Goltz, Munich, published in the gallery's house journal Der Ararat (May 1920). These words were later used as Klee's epitaph in 1940.
“Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern macht sichtbar.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The pictorial work was born of movement, is itself recorded movement, and is assimilated through movement (eye muscles).”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Formerly we used to represent things visible on earth, things we either liked to look at or would have liked to see. Today we reveal the reality that is behind visible things, thus expressing the belief that the visible world is merely an isolated case in relation to the universe and that there are many more other, latent realities. Things appear to assume a broader and more diversified meaning, often seemingly contradicting the rational experience of yesterday. There is a striving to emphasize the essential character of the accidental.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the artist communication with nature remains the most essential condition. The artist is human; himself nature; part of nature within natural space.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Klee's statement written in 1923, in 'Paths of the Study of Natura' (Wage dar Natur studiums), Paul Klee; in Yearbook of the Staatlich. Bauhaus, Weimar, 1919-1923, Bauhaus Verlag, Weimar, 1923
“Color is primarily Quality. Secondly, it is also Weight, for it has not only color value but also brilliance. Thirdly, it is Measure, for besides Quality and Weight, it has its limits, its area, and its extent, all of which may be measured.Tone value is primarily Weight, but in its extent and its boundaries, it is also Measure.Line, however, is solely Measure.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Klee's lecture 'On Modern Art', Kunstverein, Jena (26 January 1924), trans. Paul Findlay in Paul Klee: On Modern Art (London, 1948)
“It is interesting to observe how real the object remains, in spite of all abstractions.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement of mid-1920's; as quoted in Abstract Art (1990) by Anna Moszynska, p. 100
“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.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement of mid-1920'; as quoted in Abstract Art (1990) by Anna Moszynska, p. 100
“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.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Exact Experiments in the Realm of Art (1927)
“In art, too, there is room enough for exact research.. .What was accomplished in music before the end of the eighteenth century has hardly been begun in the pictorial field.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quote of Paul Klee from the text Exact experiments in the realm of art, 1928; as quoted in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016
“We [at the Bauhaus, in Dessau - where Klee was art teacher with Kandinsky ] construct and construct, and yet intuition still has its uses. Without it we can do a lot, but not everything.. .When intuition is joined to exact research it speeds the progress of exact research..”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: 'Bauhaus prospectus 1929'; as quoted in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 444
“Structural concept in nature: The grouping of the smallest recognizable entities in matter: Bone matter is cellular or tubular. Ligament structure is a sinuous-fibrous web. Tendons are continuous with the connective tissue of the muscle, strengthened by cross grain.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bones are coordinated to form the skeleton. Even at rest they depend on mutual support. This is furnished by the ligaments. Theirs is a secondary function; one could speak of a hierarchy of function. The next step in motoric organization leads from bone to muscle. The tendon is the mediary between these two.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And what is the relationship of muscle to bone? Through its ability to contract or shorten itself, the muscle brings two bones into a new angular relationship.. ..The position of two bones toward each other must change if the muscle so decides. Bones give support to the total organism; also when in motion. Muscles have a higher function because they act beside each other. One bends, the other stretches. One bone alone achieves nothing.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The work grows "stone upon stone" (additive) or The block is hewn "chip from chip" (subtractive) Both processes, building and reducing, are time bound.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Already at the very beginning of the productive act, shortly after the initial motion to create, occurs the first counter motion, the initial movement of receptivity. This means: the creator controls whether what he has produced so far is good.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The work as human action (genesis) is productive as well as receptive. It is continuity.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Receptively it [the work as human action] is limited by the limitations of the perceiving eye. The limitation of the eye is its inability to see even a small surface equally sharp at all points. The eye must "graze" over the surface, grasping sharply portion after portion, to convey them to the brain which collects and stores the impressions.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The eye travels along the paths cut out for it in the work.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The father of the arrow is the thought: how do I expand my reach? Over this river? This lake? That mountain ?”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The contrast between man's ideological capacity to move at random through material and metaphysical spaces and his physical limitations, is Uneven lengths and uneven angle-degrees of the point-rudder result in a deviating course. the origin of all human tragedy. It is this contrast between power and prostration that implies the duality of human existence. Half winged-half imprisoned, this is man!”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thought is the medially between earth and world. The broader the magnitude of his reach, the more painful man's tragic limitation. Thought is the medially between earth and world. The broader the magnitude of his reach, the more painful man's tragic limitation. To get where motion is interminate.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yesterday was shaped by Kandinsky's move.. .This departure is what proves something for me.. .It is a friendship that overcomes a number of negative items, because the plus side stands firm and, in particular, because there is a link to my productive youth [in Munich].”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in a letter to his wife Lily Klee, 11 Dec. 1932; as quoted in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016
“At the moment, an unpleasant feeling presses on my stomach, as though the new year of the unified, national Germany has assisted in the advent of an all too torch-parade-like sparkling wine bacchanal.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in a letter to his wife Lily Klee, 1 February 1933; as quoted in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016
“I'll provide it if I'm officially asked to do so but it's below my dignity to initiate action against such primitive accusations. For even if I were a Jew, and did come from Galicia, this would alter neither my own worth nor that of my work one iota. My personal point of view is that a Jew and a foreigner is of no less intrinsic value than a German and a native, and I must not abandon it of my own accord, for if I did I would appear to posterity in an absurd light. I would rather cause myself trouble than become the tragicomic figure of one striving for the favour of those in power.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in a letter to his wife Lily Klee, 6 April 1933, in response to the Nazi accusation of being a Galician Jew (quoted below) and speculating on the possibility of being required to provide proof of "Aryan ancestry";…
“Since not even sufficient time for my main business remains to me. Production is taking a larger magnitude at a faster tempo, and can no longer wholly keep up with these children. They [very probably: his new art] issue forth.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Paul Klee to his son Felix Paul Klee, 29.12.1939; as quoted in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016
“Art should be like a holiday: something to give a man the opportunity to see things differently and to change his point of view.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in the film Der Bauhaus, produced by TV-Rechte in Germany (1975)
“To be a student of Stuck [1898 - 1900] sounded good. In reality, however, it was not half so splendid. Instead of coming to him with a sound mind I brought a thousand pains and many prejudices. In the realm of colour I found it hard to progress. Since the tone provided by mood predominated strongly in my mastery of form, I sought to find as much profit as possible here at least. And, in this respect, a great deal really was to be gained at Stuck's. Naturally I was not the only one, at this time, to be deficient in the realm of color. Later, in his monograph, Kandinsky passed a similar judgement on this school [of Stuck].”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1900 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote (1900), # 121, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
“It is a great difficulty and great necessity to have to start with the smallest. I want to be as though new-born, knowing nothing, absolutely nothing, about Europe; ignoring poets and fashions, to be almost primitive. Then I want to do something very modest; to work out by myself a tiny, formal motive, one that my pencil; will be able to hold without any technique. One favorable moment is enough. The little thing is easily and concisely set down. It's already done! It was a tiny but real affair, and someday, through the repetition of such small but original deeds, there will come one work upon which I can really build.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote (June 1902), as cited in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 442
“In fact I am beginning to see a way to provide a place for my line. I am at last finding my way out of the dead-end of ornament where I found myself one day in 1907! With new strength from my naturalistic études [studies], I may dare to give form to enter my prime real of psychic improvisation again. Bound only very indirectly to an impression of nature, I may again dare to give form to what burdens the soul. To note experiences that can turn themselves into linear compositions even in the blackest night. Here a new creative possibility has long since been awaiting me, which only my frustration resulting from isolation interfered with in the past. Working in this way, my real personality will express itself, will be able to emancipate itself into the greatest freedom.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote (1908), # 840, in The Diaries of Paul Klee; University of California Press, 1964; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee - Part Three' : Klee as a Secessionist and a Neo-Impressionist Arti…
“[I] launched a new offensive against the fortress of painting. First, white thinned out in linseed oil as a general base. Second, color the entire surface lightly by applying very large areas of different colors that swim into one other and that must remain free of any effect of chiaroscuro. Third, a drawing, independent of and substituting for the unformulated tonal values. Then, at the end, some bass notes to ward off flabbiness, not too dark, but colored bass notes. This is the style that connects drawing and the realm of color, a saving transfer of my fundamental graphic talent into the domain of painting”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote (1911), Diary # 875; as cited by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painterparagraph
“The longer my production moves in a definite direction, the less gaily it progresses. But just now something new seems to be happening to the stream: it is broadening into a lake. I hope it will not lack a corresponding depth. I was the faithful image of a part of art history; I moved towards Impressionism and beyond it. I don't want to say that I grew out of it; I hope this is not so.. .In lucid moments, I now have a clear view of twelve years of the history of my inner self. First the cramped self, that self with the big blinkers, then the disappearance of the blinkers and the self, now gradually the re-emergence of a self without blinkers. It is good that one didn't know this in advance.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote (1911), Diary # 899; as cited by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter
“These are primitive beginnings in art, such as one usually finds in ethnographic collections or at home in one's nursery. Do not laugh, reader! Children also have artistic ability, and there is wisdom in their having it! The more helpless they are, the more instructive are the examples they furnish us; and they must be preserved from corruption at an early age. Parallel phenomena are provided by the works of the mentally diseased; neither childish behaviour nor madness are insulting words here, as they commonly are. All this is to be taken very seriously, more seriously than all the public galleries, when it comes to reforming today's art.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry (January 1912), # 905, quoting his "Munich Art Letter" in the journal Die Alpen
“The evening is indescribable. And on the top of everything else a full moon came up. Louis urged me to paint it. I said: it will be an exercise at best. Naturally I am not up to this kind of nature. Still, I know a bit more than I did before. I know the disparity between my inadequate resources and nature. This is an internal affair to keep me busy for the next few years. It doesn't trouble me one bit. No use hurrying when you want so much. The evening is deep inside me forever. Many a blond, northern moon rise, like a muted reflection, will softly remind me, and remind me again and again. It will be my bride, my alter ego. An incentive to find myself. I myself am the moon-rise of the South.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1898 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry, (Tunisia, April 1914), # 926-k, in: The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918, transl. Pierre B. Schneider, R.Y. Zachary and Max Knight; Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1964