Paul Klee and comic modernism

Abstract

Paul Klee tends to resist stylistic classification, since his style and materials varied widely over the course of his career. Klee participated in and was influenced by a range of artistic movements including surrealism, cubism, and expressionism, but was not faithful to any one particular movement. The one element that is consistent throughout his work is his use of comic themes. My research revolves around the evolution of comedic theater techniques used as formal elements in the works of Paul Klee. While many scholars comment on Klee's sense of humor, and his use of irony and wit, comedy, as a set theatrical conventions, has not been thoroughly analyzed. There is a strong presence of the theater in Klee's work that has been addressed in recent scholarship but not in terms of the comedic. The 2006 exhibition, "Paul Klee: Theater Everywhere" chronicled his wide-ranging references to theater, but it did not analyze the role of comic theater's particular traditions and the pictorial conventions derived from them. In this study, I will assess Klee's application of comic theatrical traditions as innovative strategies for constructing visual compositions. Separating his works into cohesive study sets that include: early satirical works, masks, puppets, and performers, theatrical landscapes, hand puppets and small stage sets, and Klee's years at the Bauhaus. While Klee used satirical and cathartic devices that date back to classical Greek theater, I will concentrate on the ways that Klee used the technical apparatuses of modern theatrical comedy as formal devices for his two-dimensional compositions. I am specifically interested in his use of the alienating techniques of Bertolt Brecht's "epic theater" and the relief-like stage of the Kunstlertheater. As consistently as his work changes through his development as an artist, comedy is a factor that consistently carries through.