Monday Morning Quote – Paul Klee on the Birth of a Line

Today’s Monday Morning Quote features Paul Klee, an artist who offers an interesting perspective on the birth of a line.

A line is a dot that went for a walk. - Paul Klee An artist with a sense of humor

Swiss-born Paul Klee was talented in both music and art, playing the violin from a young age. His father, a German music teacher, and his mother, a Swiss singer, encouraged him to develop his musical talents; his grandmother, Anna Catharina Rosina Frick, on the other hand, gave Klee his first lessons in drawing and coloring.

During his school years, Klee teetered between choosing an artist’s life or a musician’s; in the end he chose to pursue the former, which his parents reluctantly supported. This decision stemmed from Klee’s belief that music was already sufficiently developed through Bach and Mozart. He soon moved to Munich and began studying under Heinrich Knirr and Franz von Stuck.

After meeting and befriending Wassily Kandinsky, Klee became a member of the Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a group of artists who would be extremely influential in the foundation of expressionism. He participated in their second exhibition in Munich of 1912.

In 1913, Klee traveled to Tunisia, where he had a life-changing moment upon his discovery of color: “Color has taken possession of me; no longer do I have to chase after it, I know that it has hold of me forever. That is the significance of this blessed moment. Color and I are one. I am a painter.”

Klee’s style of art is hard to describe. He was influenced by many different movements and styles, including primitive art, surrealism, cubism, and children’s art. Combining these styles with humor, fantasy and grotesque themes, Klee managed to create around 9000 works of art during his lifetime . An online collection of his works can be seen here.

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