Paul Klee
Before the Gates of Kairouan, 1914
Watercolour on paper on cardboard, 20,7 x 31,5 cm
Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern
This is one of the lovely watercolours that Paul Klee painted during his journey to Tunisia in 1914. Here the landscape is divided into colourful, geometric fields. The divisions are clear in the lower part. For the sky, however, Klee used nuanced tones of one colour to create a subtle patchwork structure. It is only upon the second glance that representational elements, such as the dome or camel, become visible. In his diary, Klee wrote about the Tunisian landscape as a “rhythm of patches.” He also mentioned the cubic architecture of the cities. Tunisia is where Klee began to focus on simplified structures in the visible world, whether they belonged to the landscape or architecture. In the following years, he built upon them to create a new, abstracted mode of composition.