Collection

In the summer of 1905, Klee started using a new medium: blackened sheets of glass, which he worked on with a needle. Using the resistance of this unusual medium, he discovered a new form of artistic expression – the scratched drawing. In his diary, he described his discovery thus: »The medium is no longer the black line, it is the white. The light energy on a midnight background fits very well with the expression ‘let there be light’. And so I glide gently over into the new world of tonalities.«

Klee had tested »cliché verre« photographic copying methods years before his first experiments on glass. What interested him most about that was the reversal of the creation of form – from the positive to the negative. Similarly, the scratchings on glass had an artistically experimental nature that intrigued Klee; and – unlike Vassily Kandinsky – he was not interested in exploring the long tradition of this way of making pictures.

The energy of the white line stands out most clearly in the image »m Vater«, 1906, 23 [My father]: Klee painted the glass with black ink and scratched the outlines of his father’s portrait into it with precise strokes. He put a white coating onto the back of it, from which the powerful appearance of his father projects itself.

Although examples such as this are based on a reversal of etching technique, in most of these etchings on glass, Klee took the process further into the realm of painting by putting coloured backgrounds onto the scratched glass surface, and painted the glass directly with watercolour or ink. That caused the colour to run across the smooth material, creating a soft, iridescent effect – particularly suited to landscapes.

Some of the scenes on glass are satirical, given fine details by the artist – such as the little dog with a nose ring in »Bildn. einer gefühlvollen Dame«, 1906, 16 [Portrait of an emotional lady]. An androgynous eroticism permeates the »Puppe an violetten Bändern«, 1906, 14 [Puppet on violet ribbons], which swings through the air like a monkey. There are even more earthy caricatures, such as »Verkommene Paar«, 1905, 31 [Wretched couple], and »Bildnis einer verblühenden Rothaarigen«, 1905, 18 [Portrait of a fading redhead].

A total of sixty-four scratch drawings on glass are known today. Klee’s artistic works on paper benefited from the fine differentiations in the area of tonality which painting on glass taught him. In what are known as the black watercolours, Klee returned to the landscape motifs in his on-glass paintings, achieving finer nuances – working this time from the light into the dark – in the opposite direction.


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