Paul Klee

This work is part of a whole series of etchings which Klee described as his first successful oeuvre. In all of the works in this series, Klee was schooling himself in satirically criticising social rules and constraints.

Two naked, presumably fairly old gentlemen face each other in a barren, rocky landscape. Their bodies are exaggerated, but at the same time bones and joints have been rendered with great attention to detail. Both men are bent unnaturally far forward. Klee called this picture: “Two men meet, each believing the other to be of higher rank”. So neither of these two gentlemen knows the social status of his counterpart. For the sake of etiquette, one bows extra low just to be on the safe side. The other does exactly the same, causing the pair to bow further and further.

This picture does not depict just any two men. We can clearly identify them by their faces: as Emperor Wilhelm II of Prussia and Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. But Klee certainly had a more general critique in mind. In 1903, Klee wrote in a letter to his wife Lily:

“My etching presents in the most primitive manner: an encounter between two men, each believing the other to be of higher rank, that is grovelling before each other.”

Klee wanted to unmask social rules as disingenuous. For example, the exaggerated rituals of etiquette and hierarchical structures. Instead of a polite bow as a sign of respect, such “rituals” can result in absurdly acrobatic gestures of deference.