82.10 Rising Sun

1919

Watercolor with ink drawing, 9 1/2 x 12 3/4" (24.7 x 32.3 cm)

Signed, ul: Klee 1919. 58

Provenance: Galerie Voemel, Dusseldorf, April 9 1935

When one compares this work to Klee’s others of the period, one notes a similar inclusion of hieroglyphic-like signs in Klee’s characteristically scratchy calligraphy, floating among the color fields. Klee applied the color thinly, rubbing it into the surface to create a feeling of warm permeation from one color to the next. Evident here is his knowledge of and exploration of Delaunay’s conception of luminosity, although Klee has already moved beyond the prismatic constructions favored by the Frenchman, and was applying his color in a more random fashion. The network of black lines produces a structural skeleton that appears to be placed on top of this luminous surface. Here, aside from the obvious allusion to the sun’s orb and the energetic diagonal lines that appear at the edges of the composition, Klee included signs which have religious connotations: a menorah, a cross, a church tower. One also finds, scrawled lightly within an arch, the small figure of a man; along the bottom, two reclining figures are also visible. Klee’s consciously considered use of such cryptic forms creates in this work a near-mystical poetic sense. Klee certainly intended to evoke such a mood.

In letters in the summer of 1915 to Franz Marc, who was then at the front, Klee voiced the philosophical intentions that determined such imagery, convictions that endured even the war and the devastating loss of this same friend: “I am rather industrious, I delve deeper and deeper into the mysteries of color, which are endless; I’ve also done some serous playing on the violin this winter. Perhaps this all sounds rather strange to a soldier in the field, that one could be spending his time now watercoloring and “violining”-and I find both so important! Absolutely the essence of ‘I’! And Romanticism!” When Marc scolded him for being too romantic and otherworldly, Klee responded: “A falsely applied theory is just mind-clutter. As for my ‘I-and-Romanticism’ statement, I don’t want to appear stupid and say things that could sound phoney. Naturally I mean the godly ‘I’ as the center. This ‘I’ is for me the only reliable thing, and my trust of others depends on some common belief in this idea”