Paul Klee (1879 – 1940)
Swiss painter of German nationality.
Colour possesses me. It will always possess me. That is the meaning of this happy hour: colour and I are one. I am a painter.
I cannot be understood at all on this earth. For I live as much with the dead as with the unborn. Somewhat closer to the heart of creation than usual. But not nearly close enough.
It is possible that a picture will move far away from Nature and yet find its way back to reality. The faculty of memory, experience at a distance produces pictorial associations.
The more horrible this world (as today, for instance), the more abstract our art, whereas a happy world brings forth an art of the here and now.
He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise, i.e., cannot do something else.
Everything vanishes around me, and works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will.
The evening is deep inside me forever. Many a blond, northern moonrise, like a muted reflection, will softly remind me and remind me again and again. It will be my bride, my alter ego. An incentive to find myself. I myself am the moonrise of the south.