Collection

The five-panelled screen »Ohne Titel (Aarelandschaft)« [Untitled (Aare Landscape)] of 1900 gives us a view of the River Aare landscape outside Bern, a landscape Paul Klee loved above all others. The place was known to him from his early years; as a child, he often felt that adults misunderstood him, and sought sanctuary in the valley of the Aare. A series of technically extremely mature sketches and drawings by the seventeen-year-old were the fruit of this early, intense experience of nature and the landscape, with titles such as »Die Aare bei der Hunzikenbrücke« [The Aare near the Hunzikenbrücke] and »Aus der Elfenau« [View from the Elfenau], both from 1896.

One of Klee’s earliest ever oil paintings, »Aarelandschaft«, was a commission carried out by the young artist during a three-month visit to Bern in the summer of 1900. Klee put his summer holiday from the Munich Academy of Art – where he had been studying under Franz von Stuck for six months – to good use, relaxing in his beloved countryside around Bern, and earning a little money with the odd commission.

In a letter to his future wife, Lily Stumpf, Klee made disparaging remarks about the »indigestible folding screens« which he felt were keeping him from his true artistic work. It seems he disliked having to so obviously orient himself toward an Art Nouveau-style aesthetic of ornamental design and tonal colour scheme in line with the popular taste of the times.

Today’s assessment is rather more generous. The work is convincing in the very artistic qualities that go beyond Art Nouveau. For instance, the symmetry of composition evident in the two outer panels, and the mirror-image quality of the second and fourth panels dissolves in spatial discontinuity. An overall view of the whole is not possible; the viewer looks at the river landscape from different points and from changing perspectives, under lighting conditions that also alter. This representation of the Aare valley is a far cry from the ornamental patterns of Art Nouveau. Rather, it is a photographic portrayal – about a year before Klee’s strong interest in photography as a medium began. The impression of change corresponds with the subject of the painting – the flow of the river and the movement of the water.

Klee’s intense experiencing of nature on the banks of the Aare became a seminal experience in his lifelong obsession with landscape as a theme. In particular, he was interested in the dynamics of landscape, which for him was symbolised for instance by the motion of water. In 1938, nearly forty years after »Aarelandschaft« and two years before his death, Klee returned to the subject and, with »fliessend«, 1938, 13 (13) [Flowing], which he painted in colour paste on newspaper, arrived at an artistic solution, sparse and concise, which became symbolic of his entire oeuvre.


See also: Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, »Short Guide«, 2005.