Paul Klee and the Secrets of Nature
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona
October 21, 2022 - February 12, 2023
Glühende Landschaft [Glowing Lanscape], 1919
Oil on cardboard, 40,5 x 30,5 cm
Private collection, Switzerland
For the artist, dialogue with nature remains a conditio sine qua non.
The artist is a man, himself nature and a part of nature in natural space.
Paul Klee
Ways to Study Nature, 1923
Throughout his life, the Swiss-born German artist PAUL KLEE (1879-1940) felt an undying fascination for the observation of nature. For him, the contemplation of natural phenomena was an art in its own right, which allowed him to go beyond the world of the apparent in order to understand their intrinsic dynamics and to create works based on them.
Curated by Martina Millà, head of exhibitions at the Fundació Joan Miró, the exhibition Paul Klee and the Secrets of Nature examines the link the artist had with the natural environment, in which he found not only a field of study and a pedagogical model, but also a source of inspiration and a vital refuge. In collaboration with the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern and with advice from its chief curator, Fabienne Eggelhöfer, the show also aims to demonstrate just how important the exploration of natural phenomena was for the formation and development of an artist like Paul Klee, one of the most outstanding artists of the European avant-garde and perhaps one of the most surprising ones to rediscover through the lens of nature itself.
The exhibition unfolds into four areas that propose a chronological journey through Paul Klee’s holistic view of nature, from his formative stage right up to his final artistic one. The Zentrum Paul Klee’s collection is the most important archive of the artist’s drawings and pictorial works. The Zentrum Paul Klee also conserves his library and the natural objects that interested him and accompanied his research. The bulk of the more than 200 pieces on display in the exhibition are from these holdings, while the rest are contributions from other outstanding international private collections and institutions. Within the context of the current revision of the canon and as part of the effort to recover the names and careers of artists silenced by the official account of the history of art, each section includes a work by a woman artist, of whom some were contemporaneous with Paul Klee, such as Gabriele Münter (1877-1962), Emma Kunz (1892-1963) and Maruja Mallo (1902-1995), while others were or are aligned with some of his artistic approaches, such as Sandra Knecht (Switzerland, 1968).
This project falls within the framework of a line of exhibitions organised in collaboration with other monographic museums of major artists of the avant-gardes. Based on the Fundació Joan Miró’s holdings, the links between the two institutions will also result in a Miró exhibition focusing mainly on the large format works that were made possible by the artist’s new studio in Palma de Mallorca from 1956, which the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern will host from January to May 2023.
In his formative years, Paul Klee’s curiosity for the origin of form and of artistic expression led him to meticulously study his most immediate environments: the outskirts of Bern and the family garden. The plants, animals, landscapes, geological formations and atmospheric and physical phenomena that he examined in his various places of residence and also while on excursions and trips strengthened his relationship with nature and had an impact on his unique poetics. The first area of the show presents the importance of the study of nature to the discovery of this artistic personality based on early drawings done between 1883 and 1911, among which is his first documented drawing, done when he was just four years old. In this selection, Klee dialogues with two major artistic legacies: naturalist drawing, which he was taught during his school years and which shaped his ability to pay attention to the visible; and classical culture and its internal order, which he discovered during his trip to Italy in 1901, filtered by the reading of J. W. von Goethe, and which encouraged him to disentangle the even more complex order inherent to the natural world.
Paul Klee’s interest in discovering the dynamics of nature, and the grammar of art that he began to elaborate from his observations, gradually developed in the years between the First World War and his arrival at the Bauhaus as a teacher. ‘Trip to Tunisia, and the First World War. Nature as an Enigma and an Escape (1912-1920)’ is the title of the second area of the show, which brings together oil paintings, watercolours and drawings, in which the contemplation of nature became a visionary instrument for coping with the tough moments that he had the misfortune to endure. Standing out in this room are works like Glühende Landschaft (Glowing Landscape, 1919), an example of Klee’s total landscape, where the artist aimed to represent not only the motif, but also the connectivity of organic, atmospheric and geological elements. Belonging to the same historical context as these is another oil painting included in this area: Abstrakt (Abstract, 1914) by the German artist Gabriele Münter, a member of the avant-garde group Der blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) of which Paul Klee also formed part during his time in Munich, until the outbreak of the First World War.
This baggage and his careful reading of books like The Metamorphosis of Plants by J. W. von Goethe together served as the basis for his courses at the Bauhaus, during the years of theoretical consolidation of the first avant-gardes. Entitled ‘Teaching at the Bauhaus. The Analysis of Natural Phenomena (1921-1931)’, the third area of the show presents around 70 pieces, among which are works, pedagogical materials and collections of natural objects such as preserved plant specimens and seashells, which provided him with a field of study. His works from this period and his theoretical compendium both manifest his reflections stemming from his contemplation of the internal laws of nature – movement, growth, recurrence, conformation, which he turned into the basis of his creative process and teaching programme. When Klee taught these notions at home, he would often invite students to spend time observing fish in his aquarium, just as he would do. To evoke the philosophy of these teachings, the design of this exhibition space reconstructs Klee’s aquarium by displaying works containing fish. The works brought together in this area have already transcended the apparent aspects of nature in order to compose themselves according to their internal principles, and that is what he encouraged his students to look for. Obeying these laws are titles like Vor dem Blitz (Before the Blitz, 1923), Klang der südlichen Flora (Harmony of Southern Flora, 1927) and Gemischtes Wetter (Unsettled Weather, 1929), where nature is represented by its constituent forces. These works dialogue with one of the characteristic geometric drawings by the Swiss artist and healer Emma Kunz, whose practices precisely flowed from using the energy underlying matter.
Finally, in his last stage, Paul Klee carried on working on these topics in a mature synthesis. They also became an artistic refuge when faced with the challenge of living the latter years of his life with a degenerative disease. So, the area ‘Synthesis and Identification. The Last Period (1932-1940)’ shows how, in the final stretch of Klee’s life, which was highly productive despite his fragile state of health, his understanding of the principles of nature and his communion with it reached the peak of their expression. All of this is clear to see in works like Der Winter kommt (Winter is Coming, 1939), where he uses his fingers to paint, arriving at his so sought-after transcendence of the dualism between subject and object: is body becoming one with nature through the pictorial medium.
The artist of today is more than an improved camera; he is more complex, richer and wider. He is a creature on the Earth and a creature within the whole, that is to say, a creature on a star among stars.
Paul Klee
Ways to Study Nature, 1923
Also presented in the last room is Protozoarios (Protozoans, 1981), a later work by the Spanish surrealist painter Maruja Mallo, who was interested in portraying the potentiality of natural shapes – flowers, shells, fruit or fantastical hybridisations of living organisms – and, like Paul Klee, continued painting them right to the very end.
My Land is Your Land Dark Night (Home Is a Foreign Place), 2022
Pigment print on cotton paper, 152 x 110 x 6 cm
Artist's collection
© Sandra Knecht
The exhibition concludes with an installation by the contemporary Swiss artist Sandra Knecht. She was born in the same canton as Klee and advocates rural life as part of her practice. To establish a dialogue with Paul Klee, Knecht makes a reflection on the disease that the artist suffered from, understood as a natural process. The resulting installation is entitled Dark Night (Home is a Foreign Place) and includes photographs, sculptures and an audiovisual piece referring to the natural world and rural tradition, as well as drawings by Klee, and photographs by Francesc Català-Roca of the natural objects that abounded in Joan Miró’s studio. Pro Helvetia has participated in Sandra Knecht’s project as a collaborating institution.
By examining the artist’s special experience of natural phenomena, the exhibition Paul Klee and the Secrets of Nature also offers visitors an insight into how contemporary society has constructed its view of the natural world.
In the words of its curator, Martina Millà: ‘at a time when, facing imminent planetary collapse, there is speculation about survival strategies […] we would like to see this project as an exercise that can help us reposition ourselves by revisiting that period which marked the start of the problematisation of our gaze and of our current understanding of the phenomena of nature. Visitors can find a great opportunity to rethink their relationship with artistic practices connected with the agenda of modernity and with a planet subjected to an unstoppable process of ecosystem and biodiversity destruction; a planet that has nevertheless been the sounding board and a canvas on which human creativity has been unleashed.’
Paul Klee and the Secrets of Nature Exhibition Catalogue
Paul Klee and the Secrets of Nature is accompanied by a catalogue that reproduces a broad selection of the show’s works and includes a curatorial text by Martina Millà and an essay signed by Fabienne Eggelhöfer. The catalogue is completed by a conversation between Myriam Dössenger, a researcher at the Zentrum Paul Klee, and the artist Sandra Knecht, as well as a pedagogical manifesto written by Paul Klee in 1923 entitled Ways to Study Nature. This catalogue is available in english and in spanish.
An exhibition organised and produced by the Fundació Joan Miró in collaboration with the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern.
Curated by Martina Millà, head of exhibitions at the Fundació Joan Miró, in collaboration with Fabienne Eggelhöfer, chief curator at the Zentrum Paul Klee.
This exhibition is sponsored by the Fundación BBVA.
Fundació Joan Miró
Parc de Montjuïc, 08038 Barcelona
Paul Klee, Ein Genius serviert ein kleines Frühstück, Engel bringt das Gewünschte (A Spirit Serves a Small Breakfast, Angel Brings the Desired), 1920; lithograph with watercolor; Collection SFMOMA, Extended loan and promised gift of the Djerassi Art Trust.