Lot 81 Dα

The eminently graphic ingenuity of Paul Klee and his fantastical artistic poetry, simultaneously jovial and serious, also unfold themselves within this little composition. It was created in 1918, the last year of the war; in September 1919 it was purchased and - through the mediation of Johannes Geller, a well-known lawyer, art collector and patron from Neuss - entered the collection of the "Gesellschaft zur Förderung deutscher Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts e.V. " [“Society for the advancement of German art of the 20th century”], in whose initiation Geller had also played a decisive role. Other sheets from this period were usually turned over by the artist to his new gallerist Hans Goltz, in Munich. Klee's drawing tinted with watercolours belongs to the group of works created between 1915 and 1918, situated between the important watercolours from the 1914 journey to Tunisia and his activity at the Bauhaus, where Klee was offered a teaching position in October 1920.
“Motifs which Klee later developed more fully appear in provisional form here. Symbols that he later employed consciously can already be found here in a form that is still indeterminate, romantic. The works of this period make up for what they lack in precision through their rich power of suggestion. They have something open, mysterious and incomplete about them which is almost unique within Klee's oeuvre. The theory of art that Klee developed so systematically in the twenties here appears like a flash of insight within this dark epoch of his life, like the inspiration of an epiphany” (Jim M. Jordan, Garten der Mysterien, Die Ikonographie von Paul Klees expressionistischer Periode, in: Armin Zweite, ed., Paul Klee. Das Frühwerk 1883-1922, exh. cat., Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, München 1980, p. 227).
Perhaps it is no coincidence that the "Geister als Akrobaten" (the main title noted on the card) or, alternatively, “Schwebende Geister Akrobaten” (title from Klee's handwritten oeuvre catalogue) directly follow a watercolour titled “Ostern” in Paul Klee's autograph numbered listing of his works. Mounted with gold leaf by the artist, what unfolds on this sheet is nonetheless a secular “ascension” realised in a sort of gymnastics - five little grotesque acts balance in ludicrous, acrobatic contortions like Baroque putti, ever higher, ever further, ever upwards, stretched along a fine construction thinly unfolding its thread which, on the one hand, is to be read as the supporting element of the acrobatic acts and, on the other hand, optically congeals into a clownish patchwork around the figures. While the void lies in wait below, pennant-like symbols resembling those of a signal-flag alphabet appear above, in the peak, and there are two triangles whose tips stand on top of one another like an hourglass. It evidently threatens a limitation of this witching hour, which has not been carried out with its consequences.