Diana in the Autumn Wind – (Paul Klee) Previous Next


Artist:

Style: Surrealism

Topic: Autumn Woman Weather

Date: 1934

Size: 62 x 48 cm

This painting from his first year of exile in Switzerland, shows him solving the problem by texturing the paper with overlapping thatches of brushstrokes. The figure we assume it is a figure from the legs and white head has unfolded into a pattern of overlapping sheets, as if torn apart by the wind or opening voluntarily to its energy. The large areas of gray within the figure result from the complementary antagonism of red and green, or orange and blue, symbolic in this context of the transition between summer and winter, growth and harvest, maturation and decline. But is the figure releasing its warmth to the wind, leaving a gray husk, or absorbing the autumnal colors? The symbol of the arrow has been removed; direction and cause, action and effect no longer matter. The Pedagogical Sketchbook seems to be describing this ecstatic, balanced state when it says: "Kinetic coordination is an intricate task and demands a concept of advanced maturity. As norm for such a composition we may postulate: a harmonization of elements toward an independent, calm-dynamic, and dynamic-calm entity." In that light, this might be Klee's self portrait in the autumn of his life, calmly embodying through his art the dynamic mysteries of the world.

This artwork is in the public domain.

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