Abstract Trio 1923

Paul Klee made this artwork called Abstract Trio using ink and watercolor, the date of which is unknown. Looking at it, I get a sense of a quiet experimentation, like he’s trying to figure something out. You can see Klee is using a limited palette of yellow ochre and green that create a blurred and hazy ground, like a mist, and then using small dark lines to draw what seems like little figures. I imagine Klee starting with the wash of color, letting it settle, and then coming in with ink, almost as an afterthought. The lines have an almost childlike simplicity, which remind me of Miro. There is also a sense of play and improvisation that I try to get in my own work. I think what Klee is doing is a kind of visual thinking – a way of exploring ideas and possibilities through the act of painting itself. Artists like Klee are in conversation, experimenting and responding to one another across time.