Survey 8: Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism – Paul Klee (1879 – 1940)

Three Houses, 1922.

Paul Klee was born on December 18, 1879, in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland. He was a painter and draftsman best known for his use of colour and hue in simple and abstract shapes. He was influenced by Renaissance prints, Impressionist artists, and especially by the North African landscape which was the reason for his unrestricted use of colour. He produced many child-like pieces that appealed to the public and depicted different landscapes and emotions he experienced during WWI. From 1920 – 1931 Klee was hired at the Bauhaus school of modern design to lecture about the mechanics of art. After 1931, Klee resigned to the Dusseldorf Academy until 1933 when Hitler came into power.

While I don’t usually enjoy cubism or abstract art, I find that Klee has a unique art style that combines a number of movements that makes his work unique and appealing. I enjoy his use of colour and the shapes he creates in his pieces. Some of his pieces portray clearer subjects, such as in Three Houses and One Who Understands. I love the abstraction of fruit in his piece Suspended Fruit and the colour scheme of dark green and dull grey-red. His use of shades in Three Houses and the way he creates distance and a horizon just by using colour. The blue shades in the background look like they are fading into mountains and they whole piece has a very calm albeit melancholic feeling.

One Who Understands, 1934.
Suspended Fruit, 1921.
Tower in Orange and Green, 1922.
Hilterfingen, July 19, 1895.
Rough-Cut Head, 1935.
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Survey 1: Late Gothic and Renaissance- Paolo Uccello (1397 – 1475)

The Battle of San Romano, 1438-1440

Paolo Uccello, whose real name was Paolo Di Dono, was born on June 15th, 1397 in Pratovecchio, Italy. He was was a painter and mathematician who studied as a member of the workshop of the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti. While most of his early work had been in the Gothic style, following naturalistic, curved lines, his experience with sculpture under Ghiberti allowed him to think in three-dimensional forms while working on two-dimensional paintings. Uccello used his experience in mathematics and applied it to art in order to champion the use of perspective in Renaissance art.

Uccello’s compositions utilize perspective to give his paintings depth and give more weight to each scene. The objects in his paintings each have their own space that they occupy rather than simply laying flat in front of a background. This weight makes the interactions of the different subjects feel more dynamic. The Hunt in the Forest, for example, uses the hunting dogs to show the depth of the forest, and the size of these dogs deepens the forest, giving it a more vast look. The fallen logs point deeper into the forest, and guide the viewer’s eyes towards the center of the painting, and towards their common vanishing point. In The Battle of San Romano, the fallen knights show the depth of the battlefield, and gives each cavalry a space to occupy.

The Crucifixion, mid 1450’s
Saint George Slaying the Dragon, 1430
The Hunt in the Forest, 1465-1470
The Annunciation, early 1420s

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