Quotes by Klee, Paul

"Democracy with its semi-civilization sincerely cherishes junk. The artist's power should be spiritual. But the power of the majority is material. When these worlds meet occasionally, it is pure coincidence."

Klee, Paul on democracy   

"In the final analysis, a drawing simply is no longer a drawing, no matter how self-sufficient its execution may be. It is a symbol, and the more profoundly the imaginary lines of projection meet higher dimensions, the better."

Klee, Paul on drawing   

"Genius sits in a glass house -- but in an unbreakable one --conceiving ideas. After giving birth, it falls into madness. Stretches out its hand through the window toward the first person happening by. The demon's claw rips, the iron fist grips. Before, you were a model, mocks the ironic voice between serrated teeth, for me, you are raw material to work on. I throw you against the glass wall, so that you remain stuck there, projected and stuck. (Then come the lovers of art and contemplate the bleeding work from outside. Then come the photographers. New art, it says in the newspaper the following day. The learned journals give it a name that ends in ism.)"

Klee, Paul on genius   

"The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions."

Klee, Paul on life   

"Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn."

Klee, Paul on nature   

"Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible."

Klee, Paul on art   

"The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract."

Klee, Paul on art   

"Some will not recognize the truthfulness of my mirror. Let them remember that I am not here to reflect the surface... but must penetrate inside. My mirror probes down to the heart. I write words on the forehead and around the corners of the mouth. My human faces are truer than the real ones."

Klee, Paul on portraits   

"When looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed."

Klee, Paul on sacrifice   

"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."

Klee, Paul on sarcasm   

"The worst state of affairs is when science begins to concern itself with art."

Klee, Paul on science   

"He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise."

Klee, Paul on style   

"Beauty is as relative as light and dark. Thus, there exists no beautiful woman, none at all, because you are never certain that a still far more beautiful woman will not appear and completely shame the supposed beauty of the first."

Klee, Paul on beauty
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"To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers."

Klee, Paul on beauty   

"A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller."

Klee, Paul on change   

"One eye sees, the other feels."

Klee, Paul on vision   

"Children also have artistic ability, and there is wisdom in there having it! The more helpless they are, the more instructive are the examples they furnish us; and they must be preserved free of corruption from an early age."

Klee, Paul on children   

"Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter."

Klee, Paul on color   

"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."

Klee, Paul on creativity   

"One does not lash hat lies at a distance. The foibles that we ridicule must at least be a little bit our own. Only then will the work be a part of our own flesh. The garden must be weeded."

Klee, Paul on criticism