 | Torn between his twin loves of painting and music, Swiss-born Paul Klee ultimately preferred the visual arts as his medium, although he remained an accomplished violinist and derived much of his inspiration from that pursuit. Klee's paintings, watercolors, and sketches exhibit a remarkable range of subjects and combine primitive art, surrealism, cubism, and children's art in a fantastical form that almost defies classification. In whatever guise, though, his work is principally concerned with nature and the elemental symbols he believed lay beneath the surface. In 1906, Klee settled in Munich, where he befriended other avant-garde artists such as Macke and Kandinsky, and joined Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider group). After the Nazis came to power, Klee fled to Switzerland, where his later work exhibits pessimistic, sardonic overtones, possibly owing to the infliction of a debilitating mental illness. |
