Klee: 1879-1940: Poet of Colours, Master of Lines (Basic Art Series)

This short book (96pp.) comprises an introduction to the life and work of Paul Klee (1879-1940). Partsch’s text provides a chronological account of the artist’s life, but there is little to recommend it apart from a couple of useful notes on some of Klee’s methods. Things are not helped by an idiosyncratic translation, but there isn’t much you can do when the author has written something that reads like a poor student essay, replete with non sequiturs, trivial observations (banal descriptions of paintings that are themselves reproduced in the book) and speculative interpretations backed up by nothing other than rhetorical force. Partsch claims, for example, that Klee’s “Musician” (1937) “depicts Klee’s inner conflict”, neither telling us what that conflict was nor what aspects of the painting indicate it. And apart from mention of the influence of Robert Delaunay’s work on colour, there is little attempt to situate Klee’s work in the context of modernism – specifically abstraction and surrealism. The book is saved, however, by the illustrations: nearly 70 colour plates of Klee’s paintings and some 20 or so black-and-white reproductions of drawings and etchings (thankfully just three paintings are reproduced in black and white). A fair number of reproductions take up a whole page, and the colour reproduction and detail are good. If you want a visual introduction to Klee’s work, this is a good place to start – just don’t expect much from the accompanying text.

Paul Klee, who died in 1940 is very much an underestimated artist who played a key role in the developments of modernism and abstract art. There are only a few books detailing his life and work and Taschen, the publishers, have come up with this attractive volume to fill this gap. What is most striking about this is the quality of the reproductions of Klee’s paintings. This is helped by the generous sized pages which measure 21.3 x 26.2 cm. the text is quite good as it is always difficult to cover a lifetime which was lived to the full, in a limited number of pages. One quibble though is that at times the writing style is a bit jerky, possibly due to the translation from the original German. In addition, the layout at times is irritating when the reader has to flick back or forward a few pages in order to see the picture being described in the text. Another small point is that an index and a Bibliography would have enhanced the text. On a more positive note, the two pages given over to the main events/developments in the artist’s life which are given at the end of the book are most helpful. As an introduction to Paul Klee, some readers might prefer Paul Klee Masterpieces of Art (Hardcover) by Susie Hodge. That said, Susanna Patsch’s book in the Taschen series has much to commend it for those who want to know more about Klee and more importantly for those who want to savour his paintings.