Highway and byways 1929

Paul Klee built this "Highway and Byways" with paint, maybe watercolor, in no particular year. Isn’t it interesting how he starts with this grid, then tilts the whole thing back into space? The colors, yellows, blues and greens are like the colors you see looking out the window of a train, or maybe they’re just the colors in his head. I love the way the paint isn’t too precious, it’s thin in places, almost like a stain. Look at the way the colors pool and bleed into one another, how each little rectangle feels like it has its own weather system, a little world of its own. It reminds me of Agnes Martin, the way she used grids to get lost in color. Both artists show that a painting is not a window to look through, but more like an atmosphere to get lost inside.