Quote

A tendency toward the abstract is inherent in linear expression: graphic imagery being confined to outlines has a fairy-like quality and at the same time can achieve great precision.

Paul Klee

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Paul Klee
Age: 61 †
Born: 1879
Born: February 18
Died: 1940
Died: May 29
Designer
Graphic Artist
Lithographer
Painter
University Teacher
Visual Artist
Münchenbuchsee BE
p. klee
Klee
Paul Klee
Time
Tendencies
Outlines
Like
Fairy
Linear
Abstract
Imagery
Toward
Precision
Expression
Graphic
Achieve
Confined
Quality
Tendency
Great
Inherent

More quotes by Paul Klee

Image
Art does not reproduce the visible it makes visible.
Paul Klee
Image
Every artist would like to live in the central organ of creation... Not all are destined to get there... but our beating hearts drive us deep down, right into the pit of creation.
Paul Klee
Image
In earlier times artists liked to show what was actually visible... nowadays we are concerned with reality, rather than the merely visible.
Paul Klee
Image
Drawing is the art of taking a line for a walk.
Paul Klee
Image
Color has got me. I no longer need to chase after it. It has got me for ever. I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour.
Paul Klee
Image
He neither serves nor rules, he transmits. His position is humble and the beauty at the crown is not his own. He is merely a channel.
Paul Klee
Image
There is no substitute for intuition.
Paul Klee
Image
A certain fire pretends to be alive it awakens. Working its way along the hand as a conductor, it reaches the support and engulfs it then a leaping spark closes the circle it was to trace, coming back to the eye and beyond.
Paul Klee
Image
To give emphasis only to beauty makes me think of a mathematics that deals with positive numbers only.
Paul Klee
Image
Democracy with its semi-civilization sincerely cherishes junk. The artists power should be spiritual. But the power of the majority is material. When these worlds meet occasionally, it is pure coincidence.
Paul Klee
Image
Satire must not be a kind of superfluous ill will, but ill will from a higher point of view. Ridiculous man, divine God. Or else, hatred against the bogged-down vileness of average man as against the possible heights that humanity might attain.
Paul Klee
Image
A line comes into being. It goes out for a walk, so to speak, aimlessly for the sake of the walk.
Paul Klee
Image
I have a clear view of 12 years of history of my inner self. First the cramped self, that self with big blinkers, then the disappearance of the blinkers and the self, now gradually the reemergence of a self without blinkers.
Paul Klee
Image
Frightened, I jump up from the bank, the struggle begins anew. Bitterness has returned. I am not Pan in the reed, I am merely a human being and want to climb a few steps, but really climb them.
Paul Klee
Image
Everything passes, and what remains of former times, what remains of life, is the spiritual. In everything we do, the claim of the Absolute is unchanging.
Paul Klee
Image
We document, explain, justify, construct, organize: these are good things, but we do not succeed in coming to the whole. But we may as well calm down: construction is not absolute. Our virtue is this: by cultivating the exact we have laid the foundations for a science of art, including the unknown X.
Paul Klee
Image
Becoming is superior to being.
Paul Klee
Image
I paint in order not to cry.
Paul Klee
Image
Nature can afford to be prodigal in everything, the artist must be frugal down to the last detail. Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn.
Paul Klee
Image
When looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed.
Paul Klee