Stage Landscape 1922

Paul Klee assembled this little gem, Stage Landscape, with oil transfer and crayon on paper, stuck on cardboard. Look at how Klee played with these earthy tones, a real warm hug of browns, reds and ochres, and then BAM!, a jolt of lime green smack in the middle. You can almost see him there, shuffling these shapes around like a cosmic game of Tetris, trying out different moods, shifting the weight, trying to find the ‘on’ switch. I bet he was thinking about his Bauhaus buddies and Wassily Kandinsky, kicking around ideas about how colors and lines can sing together. Those wiggly lines, they’re like a secret language, a visual poem scribbled just for us. I am sure he was thinking of landscape, but landscape not as a scene but as a mental space, where seeing is feeling and feeling is seeing. What a mensch! Painting is just one big conversation between artists, isn’t it?