The Monarchist 1904

This is Paul Klee's "The Monarchist", an etching made sometime around 1904. I love how Klee’s mark-making here is so methodical, almost scientific, yet deeply weird, like a dream logic. Look at the stippled texture, the way the shading is built up from tiny dots, it's like he's mapping out some strange terrain with the finest of pens. The surface has a real physicality despite being a print, you can imagine him hunched over the plate, meticulously adding each mark. The figure itself is fascinating, an awkward, almost comical nude reaching towards what exactly? And that crown, floating above, is it a symbol of power, or some kind of mocking emblem? Klee's playfulness reminds me a little of Philip Guston, that ability to blend the serious with the absurd, to find meaning in the most unexpected places. The beauty of art, right? There's no one answer.