Roundness

Roundness A reflection on Paul Klee's Art by River
Roundness A reflection on Paul Klee's Art by River
What does it mean?	About a year ago I was in a doctor's office and was looking at an immense reproduction of this Paul Klee painting called Insula Dulcamara. I meet a woman and we pleasantly chatted about the painting. She told me how her son and she would discuss what all the little objects in the painting were, birds and fish and whatever. I had just read an explaination that gave another set of interpretations that didn't seem quite as adequate. It made me begin to think about how I felt about the painting rather than what I thought it represented.

Paul Klee

The print at left is entitled, "Senechio" by Paul Klee and it may be purchased from AllPosters.com. The meaning of senecio has been interpreted as getting old.

Paul Klee did many "head" paintings similiar to this one in his lifetime. It was a recurring theme that took on both dark and light aspects.

I looked at other Klee paintings and thought about how Klee had spent hours playing with his son building a puppet theater and puppets. And the result he depicted in many of his paintings. Klee's art was very playful but not cute. There was a depth that came through in his solemn colors, a depth that you find in children. The cuteness in children is a veneer and underneath children have as vital a life as adults. To understand the pureness of emotion in children is a way to discover the pureness of emotion in our adult lives. At least this is how I was thinking of the insight in Klee's paintings. I started to think about other artists who I liked and what their similarities were to Klee's art.

Jean Dubuffet

The print at left is entitled, "The Cow with the Subtile Nose" by Jean Dubuffet and can be found atArtchive.com.

Klee's paintings were very textural. If anything Dubuffet's were even more. He would use glass shards and other debris to encrust his paintings, filling out his simple forms with loaded meaning.

I began to think about Jean Dubuffet. Somewhat of an modern day Klee. I didn't know that Jean Dubuffet was also interested in children like Klee. "Fascinated by the art of children and the insane, for which he coined the term art brut ("raw art"), he emulated its crude, violent energy in his own work. Critics soon applied the term art brut to Dubuffet's paintings, rather than to their stylistic source as he had intended." Cited in Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000 © 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. "Dubuffet, Jean Philippe Arthur".

The painting at left is entitled, "Monsieur Plume with Creases in His Trousers (Portrait of Henri Michaux)" (1947) and hangs in the Tate Gallery in London, England. © 2000 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY. Microsoft® Encarta® 2001 Encyclopedia. http://encarta.msn.com © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. It can be found on the web at Encarta. Information regarding the artist is also available here.

Circles

The painting above is not entitled. It's given as an example of Children's Art showing the simplified shapes such as the sun. it can be found at the The On-Line Visual Literacy page that also has the article on shapes.

Then I began to think about roundness. So many of the forms in both painters's work had that quality and it had a primal nature that evoked emotion. I dragged out my ancient copy of Klee's Pedagogical Sketchbook and tried to find what I could on circles. He called the circle the purest of mobile forms..."only created through the liquidation of gravity (through elimination of material ties)." That sounded nice but I wanted something written in more casual terms. I remembered a link to The On-Line Visual Literacy. I looked up shape and found this quote: "it won't be far fetched to say that we all read the circle of the sun as warmth and protection, as the best signifier of repose. It is continuity comforting to our eyes. The same feelings are associated with all kinds of curvy forms. They seem calm, pacific, assured, sensuously relaxed, and optimistic." I found this an excellent way to put it even though it was saying almost exactly the same thing as "the purest of mobile forms" and a "liquidation of gravity".

Stainboy

Optimistic though did not quite get at the depth of these paintings. I then thought of a playful creation that had a definite edge and a profound inner intensity that matched our modern times. He is Stainboy. Stainboy is almost all circles. The circles give us a sense of purity in his dark world. The contrast of his ghostly body and his surroundings draw us in. The circle of his head is a visual trap and even more so his eyes. They make us focus. Despite his apparent weakness, the pathetic looking creature wears the cloak of a superhero with a small s on his front. We're aware inside this creature are powerful forces for good. The ironic character is a parable for our apparent weaknesses and our inner strengths.

The picture of Stainboy is from his site on Shockwave.com

Tim Burton created this character who is presented in several wonderful episodes.