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Research in Phenomenology 43 (2013) 374-393

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Paul Klee. From Structural Analysis

and Morphogenesis to Art
Michael Baumgartner
Zentrum Paul Klee

Abstract
This contribution illuminates the meaning of the systematic confrontation with nature in the
artistic and art-theoretical thought of Paul Klee. Klee's specific interest lay in the analysis of the
morphological and structural principles of plants as well as in the study of the processes of growth
and form in nature. A central element of this confrontationwhich also manifested itself in
nuanced ways in Klee's teaching at the Bauhaus and in his artistic creationsis the reduction of
the manifold natural world of appearance to structural and morphological principles which can
be freely and creatively reassembled. These principles form the foundation for Klee's processoriented understanding of nature and art.
Keywords
plants, nature, art, process, Paul Klee, structure, morphology

The examination of nature runs like a thread through Klee's entire work; from
his childhood until 1940, his final year of creative work, in which 31 pictures,
even though often in a poetically alienated way, refer to plants or flora. In his
youth, Klee's relationship to nature was, on the one hand, emphatic, if not even
romantic, on the other hand, however, it was likewise characterized by careful
observation and a classificatory system, which he had acquired in his zoology
and botany lessons at high school. Like all the students at Bern's Municipal
High School, Klee had already learned the systematology and classification of
animals and plants early, and, as all his school books testify, he had achieved
a scientific meticulousness in illustrating not only the outward appearance of
animals and plants but also their build and structure. (Fig. l)
On the other hand, as an adolescent Klee felt excluded from the adult
world and regarded the natural world as a place to which he could escape and
retreat, and the emotional conflict between his fascination for it and his fear of
3 Koninklijkc Brill NV, Leiden, ;2i>i3

1)01: lU.116:i/156S164O-12341265

M. Baumgartner / Research in Phenomenology 43 (2013) 374-393

Figure 1: Paul Klee, Schoolbook, Zoology I Avertebrata, 1895

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its chaotic entropy would become a formative experience of his youth. There
are numerous entries in his diary that deal with an intensive, almost hallucinatory experience of nature, their themes reminiscent of the German Romantics.
"For a long time I had not bothered to look at the landscape. Now it lay there
in all its splendor, deeply moving!"' And: "In earlier days (even as a child), the
beauty of landscapes was quite clear to me. A background for the soul's moods.
Now dangerous moments occur when Nature tries to devour me."^ These idiosyncratic experiences of nature find their expression in sensitive landscape
drawings from 1897 and 1898.
By contrast, Klee's work from 1902 to 1910 is characterized by an attempt
to gain a more distanced relation to nature and to focus on the analysis of
its perception. From 1898 until 1901 he had accomplished his artistic studies
in Munich. In 1901 he made a six-month field trip to Italy in the company of
sculptor Hermann Hallen After this he returned to Bern where he lived in his
parent's house until 1907 and advanced his artistic formation autodidactically.
In 1906 Klee spent more time working in the garden of his parents' house and
derived great pleasure from occupying himself with the laws of plant growth
such as the propagation of plants through side sprout-rooting, also in putting
them into practice. "In our garden," he writes in the diary,
1 lavish pious attention on the bergamots that I brought back from Rome and replant them
by making a strong branch grow independently. This procedure also provides a neat experiment in the field of capillary action. [Fig. 2]
A
B
C
D

Plant with two branches a and b;

Branch b is bent down and fastened to the ground by its middle.
After it has struck roots at this point, it is severed from branch a.
The new plant 61/ll grows independently; from now on, the circulation of the sap in
branch 61 is reversed.^

Apart from these proper attempts, Klee was also interested in the technical
examination of natural phenomena. He bought a camera and made photographic studies or technical experiments such as the use of a pantograph to

" The Diaries of Paul Klee i8f)8-igi8, ed. Felix Klee, trans. B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary, and Max
Knight (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), no. 564, p. 152. Hereaafter cited as Diaries,
followed by section number and page.
^' "Autobiographische Texte 1920," Leopold Zahn, in Paul Klee, Tagebcher i8i)8-igi8, textkritische Neuedition, hrsg. von der Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Kunstmuseum Bern, bearb. von Wolfgang
Kersten, (Stuttgart: Hatje, 1988), 520 (my translation). Hereafter cited as TB.
^' Klee, Diaries, no. 770, p. 204.

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,4 iitn'^i-ijliM/tJ^^./.ucdixJ hS^les^ii/iit-

377

Figure 2: Paul Klee, Diary, Plant with two branches a and b, 1906
enlarge, reduce, or distort graphie outlines. His most systematic pursuit of
this analysis of perception was in the field of tonal relationships, the so-called
"light form": "By this I mean the conversion of the light-dark expanse according
to the law by which lighted areas grow larger when opposed to dark areas of
mathematically equal size
Now carried through with greater thoroughness
by means of a lens (glass eye). This magnifying glass brings into view at the
same time the color essence of the natural phenomenon. All detail is simply
eliminated.'"* In deepening and systematizing perceptual analysis by artistic
means, Klee was taking the first steps toward what he would later describe as
"the first instance of working abstractly from nature. "^ And in 1909 he wrote in
his diary: "Nature can afford to be prodigal in everything," "the artist must be
frugal down to the smallest detail. Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn."^
This process of reduction went hand in hand with an increasing concentration on visual and creative means as such and led Klee to the momentous discovery that the analysis of the latter was more significant for his work than the
study of nature itself: "And now an altogether revolutionary discovery: to adapt
oneself to the contents of the paint box is more important than nature and its
study. I must some day be able to improvise freely on the chromatic keyboard
" Ibid., no. 874, p. 244.
5' "Autobiographische Texte 1919," Wilhlem Hausenstein II, in Klee, TB, 513 (my translation).
^ Klee, Diaries, no. 857, p. 236.

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of the rows of watercolor cups."^ In 1910 Klee expanded his experiences in

light-dark painting to the realm of color. In so doing he took a freer and more
spontaneous approach to technique. He restricted his watercolor palette to a
few tones and achieved the creation of outlines, shadows, and spatial depth
purely through color by varying the application of paint and contrasting light
and dark colors. The process of abstraction in the arrangement of color found
its parallels at the compositional level, for example when Klee cut works into
two parts. By taking a pair of scissors to the work, Klee drastically reduced the
image and restricted the field of vision.
The process of artistic abstraction is accompanied by a growing tendency
in Klee's theoretical reflections to conceive of his relationship to nature and
natural processes in a wider metaphysical and at the same time analytical context. In a diary entry, he thus distanced himself programmatically from the
famous definition of Franz Marc's "passionate variety of humanity," by writing:
"He [Franz Marc] places himself on the same level with plants and stones and
animals. In Marc, the bond with the earth takes precedence over the bond with
the universe... I place myself at a remote starting point of creation, whence I
state a priori formulas for men, beasts, plants, stones and the elements, and for
all the whirling forces."^ This "remote starting point of creation" also meant
rejecting a directly perceptual relationship with nature. In its place, Klee
developed between 1914 and 1918 a growing interest in structural patterns or
the characteristics of processes of growth and development, which he saw as
analogous to the genesis of a work of art: There is, in the first place, a kind of
structural inventory of plant organs, which has to be seen in the context of
Klee's examination of Cubism. This new analytical look at the visible world
that the Cubists had presented manifested itself in Klee's oeuvreas in When
God Considered the Creation ofthe Plants, 1913,176 (Fig. 3), for example, a work
whose title equated the idea of a new world created through artistic means
with the idea of divine creation. It is clearly visible how Klee finds, by his own
means, his (own) kind of synthetic Cubism, afi:er having engaged himself in
the previous years in possibilities on how to break down the world of objects
into prism-like component parts and then recombine and interweave them
in accordance with purely compositional requirements. Klee had seen Pablo
" Ibid., no. 873, p.244. At about the same time, Vassily Kandinsky also used the metaphor of
the chromatic piano in his seminal work Concerning the Spiritual in Art. "Generally speaking,
colour is a power which directly influences the soul. Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings" (Vasily Kandinsky, ber das Geistige in der Kunst
[Munich: R. Piper, 1912), 49; translated by M. T. H. Sadler as Concerning the Spiritual in Art (New
York: Dover Publications, 1977), 25. Translation first published 1914.
' Klee, Diaries, no. 1008, pp. 343,344.

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Figure 3: Paul Klee, When God Considered the Creation ofthe Plants, 1913,176
Paul Klee, Als Gottsich mit der Erschaffung der Pflanzen trug, 1913,176
Pen, pencil, and watercolor on paper on cardboard, 15 x 21.5 cm
Eva-Maria W. Worthington Gallery, Inc., Chicago
Picasso's early Cubist works in Munich as early as 1910 at the exhibition of the
Neue Knstlervereinigung (New Artists' Association), and what impressed him
about them was the boldness with which painting managed to forge beyond
the mere outward appearance of the visible to an analysis of inner structure.
Although variously inspired by Cubism, Klee's attitude remained ambivalent. He certainly recognized Cubism as a breakthrough in modern pictorial
construction; at the same time, however, he lamented the formal destructiveness that occurred when objects were reshaped. In this regard, he was especially
critical of Picasso's arbitrariness when reducing the human figure to "primitive forms of projection such as the triangle, rectangle, and circle" that "lose
some of their viability with each conversion."^ Klee's association with Cubism
is limited almost exclusively to abstract constructions of spacefrom which
he developed his metaphor of the "crystalline"and to occasional depictions
of nature in which he dared to deconstruct the organic world, as in When God
^' Paul Klee, "Die Ausstellung des Modernen Bundes im Kunsthaus Zrich," Die Alpen 6, no. 12
(August 1912): 696-704, in Paul Klee, Schriften, Rezensionen undAutze, hrsg. v. Christian Geelhaar (Kln: DuMont, 1976), 107 (my translation). Hereafter cited as Schriften.

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Considered the Creation of the Plants. However after having dismantled the
objects in the sense of analytical Cubism, it was rather the structural analysis of
natural organisms that mattered to him in terms of the depiction of nature. It is
what he described as a remote starting point of creation and a priori formulas
for men, beasts, plants, and stones.
The analytical and reductive character of works with the somehow enigmatic titles 2752^ R arrangement of stalks or Creation plan 23436 G blossoms
(Fig. 4) are reminiscent of technical or scientific drawings and show striking
parallels to the schematic pictures of Goethe's Urpflanze ("original" or "primordial plant") depicted by his follower Carl Gustav Carus in his Schema der
Urpflanze (Diagram of the Original Plant) of 1861. Klee had a profound knowledge of Goethe's theory of the natural world. In fact, his concept of the subject is based on Goethe's theory of metamorphosis.'" His understanding of
the notions of "metamorphosis" and "genesis" is very close to Goethe's conception of these terms, and these similarities have been researched in detail
by Volker Harlan, Werner Hofmann, Richard Hoppe-Sailer, Christa Lichtenstern, and Fujiio Maeda and Fabienne Eggelhfer." Further evidence of Klee's
interest in the subject has been found in two recently discovered sources. First,
Klee attended a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Munich in February 1918,
"" Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern has in its keeping the complete edition of Goethe's writings, the
correspondence with Charlotte von Stein and Eckermann's conversations with Goethe. Of particular interest are volume 36 of Goethe's writings comprising texts on plant morphology and
(plant) metamorphosis and volume 40 discussing natural science in general. In this regard, Klee's
marks and comments in the margins, which have been analysed only partially so far, are illuminating. It is explained by the fact that for a long time scientists conducting research on Klee were
not aware that this complete edition had been preserved, because it could only be inventoried
while transferring the complete personal estate of the Klee family to the Zentrum Paul Klee.
"' Volker Harlan, "Die Dynamik der 'Urpflanze,' wie Goethe, Klee und Beuys sie sahen," in Ausstellung Katalog: Paul Klee trifft Joseph Beuys, hrsg. T. Osterwold (Ostldern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz,
2000), 116-29; Volker Harlan, Das Bild der Pflanzen in Wissenschaft und Kunst: bei Aristoteles und
Goethe, der botanischen Morphologie des ig. und 20. Jahrhunderts und bei den Knstlern PaulKlee
undJoseph Beuys (Stuttgart: Mayer, 2002); Wemer Hofniann, "Ein Beitrag zur 'morphologischen
Kunsttheorie' der Gegenwart," in W. Hofmann, Bruchlinien. Aufitze zur Kunst des ig. Jahrhunderts (Mnchen: Prestel Verlag, 1979), 55-69; Richard Hoppe-Sailer, "Genesis und Prozess. Elemente der Goethe-Rezeption bei Carl Gustav Carus, Paul Klee und Joseph Beuys," in Goethe und
die Verzeitlichung der Natur, hrsg. Peter Matussek (Mnchen: C. H. Beck, 1998), 276-300; Christa
Lichtenstem, Metamorphosen in der Kunst des ig. und 20. Jahrhunderts. Die Wirkungsgeschichte
der Metamorphosenlehre Goethes. Von Philipp Otto Runge bisjoseph Beuys (Weinheim: VCH. 1990);
Fujio Maeda, "Wege des Naturstudiums Goethe und Paul Klee," in Goethe-Jahrbuch, GoetheGesellschaft in Japan, 28 (1976): 89-108; Fabienne Eggelhfer, "Paul Klees Lehre vom Schpferischen," Ph.D. Dissertation, Universitt Bern, 2012, pp. 37-47,170-96 (http://wwTV.zb.unibe.ch/
download/eldiss/i2eggelhoefer_fpdf).

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Figure 4: Paul Klee, Creation plan 23436 G (blossoms), 1917,59

Paul Klee, Schpfungsplan 23436 G (Blten), 1917,59

Pencil on lined paper on cardboard, 14.6 x 17.5 cm

Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Kunstmuseum, Bern
accompanied by his wife, Lily, who had a strong interest in anthroposophy;
the subject of the lecture was a detailed exposition of Goethe's theory of metamorphosis. Second, a letter from Klee to Katherine S. Dreier reveals a common interest in Goethe's "archetypal plant"'^ During her visit to the Bauhaus
in 1922, Katherine Dreier apparently had an intense discussion with Klee about
Goethe's color theory and the original plant and asked him to copy for her color
boards of Goethe's color theory and schemes of the original plant at the Goethe
Museum. In a letter, dated 21 October 1922, he asks her for some specifications

'^' Rudolf Steiner, "Das Sinnlich-hersinnliche in seiner Verwirklichung durch die Kunst," lecture first delivered on February 15,1918, in Munich, published in his Kunst und Kunsterkenntnis.
Grundlagen einer neuen Aesthetik (Dornach: Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, 1961), 49-72.

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and more detailed information because, due to the abundance of material, it

proved difficult to be clear as to what Katherine Dreier really requested.'^
Thus Goethe is the starting point for answering the question concerning which role models and sources have further determined Klee's notion of
nature. Furthermore, the evident connections between Klee and Romanticism
are emphasized in the voluminous literature. I will focus on three aspects of
the Romantic world view that played an important role in Klee's thinking as
well: overcoming polarity, striving for universality, and the already mentioned
principle of eternal becoming, which originates in Goethe's theory of metamorphosis. In Klee's library one can find, besides editions of Romantic "classics"
such as Hlderlin or Kleist, some books by authors of New Romanticism like
Hugo von Hoffmannsthal, Ludwig Otti, Thomas Mann, or Rainer Maria Rilke
too. Klee's notion of a work of art as a living, dynamic organism that is subject
to constant change also shows striking parallels to Schlegel's universalist natural philosophy and its concept of constant becoming. Art, says Schlegel, "creating autonomously like nature, both organized and organizing, must form living
works, which are first set in motion, not by an outside mechanism like a pendulum, but by an indwelling power like the solar system, and which, when they
are completed, turn back upon themselves."'" See how related this statement is
to Klee's dictum in "Wege des Naturstudiums" ("Ways ofStudying Nature"): "The
artist's growth in the vision and contemplation of nature enables him to rise
towards a metaphysical view of the world and to form free abstract structures
which surpass schematic intention and achieve a new naturalness, the naturalness of the work. Then he creates a work, or participates in the creation of
works, that are the image of God's work."'^
When speaking about Klee's affinity with the emphasis of the Romantic
world view, one has to take into consideration at the same time his preference for the ironic mutation of this assertive claim, which was also characteristic for Romanticism and post-Romanticism. This ironic "distance" also saved
him from deducing universalist structure and proportion ratios in nature
from mathemical laws and division ratios, as his contemporaries, for example.

''' Letter from Paul Klee to Katherine S. Dreier, October 21,1922, original copy in New Haven,
Yale University Library, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Katherine S. Dreier Papers / Socit Anonyme Archive.
'*' Friedrich Schlegel, Schriften. Eine Auswahl aus dem Gesamtwerk (Augsburg, n.d.), 119; quoted
in Annika Waenerberg, Urpflanze und Ornament. Pflanzenmorphologische Anregungen in der
Kunsttheorie und Kunst von Goethe bis zumjugenstil (Helsinki: Soc. Scientiarum Fennica, 1992),
22 (my translation).
'^' Klee, "Wege des Naturstudiums," 1923, in Klee, Schriften, 126.

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383

Figure 5: Paul Klee, Number trees, 1918,198

Paul Klee, Zahlenbume, 1918,198
Pencil and pen on paper on cardboard, 16.4 x 12.3 cm
Paul-Klee-Stiftung, Kunstmuseum, Bern
Johannes Itten used to do, because of their affinity with esoteric number mysticism. And despite this profound interest, at the same time also, Klee's ironical
view on all these efforts to derive the structure and proportion ratios in nature
and art exclusively from mathematical laws and division ratios appears in
works hke the ironically truncated work Number trees (Fig. 5). In this drawing
Klee playfully designed tree-like objects of numbers and bills, with which he

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used to busy himself in his capacity as an office clerk in an air force unit in
World War I. With this in mind, the aforementioned examples also can just as
well be understood as parodies of the possibilities of a regular structuring of
art and as serious attempts. From this perspective, Klee's scepticism towards
any kind of number metaphysics as propagated by Rudolf Steiner, whose book
Lily Klee had given to him, also has to be understood. In this context, he noted:
"I was reading Steiner's book for a little while. If only everything was said more
shortly, on twenty pages. I admit that it contains a lot of intellectuality, but
even more nonsense and things that cannot be universally valid
the hints at
formal structuring are downright funny. The numbers are impossible, because
they are futile. Any simple equation makes more sense."'^
Klee reacted to Steiner's esoteric claim to scientificity just as sceptically as
he did to any form of attempted intrusion of natural sciences into the art field.
On a related note, an art-political controversy, which arose in the context of
the Bauhaus, is revealing. It was caused by an oral presentation by chemist
and Nobel Prize winner Wilhelm Ostwald on the occasion of the First German
Color Day, which had been organized by the German Work Federation in September 1919. With regard to art, Ostwald propagated a color theory based on
scientific evidence and grounded on measurable data through the normative
harmonization of equal tonalities. By saying this, he had entered a field artists
considered their very own.''' What followed was their swift negative reaction.
Art historian Hans Hildebrant, head of the Free Color Art Group of the German Work Federation, which was supported by Bruno Taut and other forwardthinking artists of the Work Federation, became the mouthpiece of Ostwald's
opponents and in summer 1920, he asked Klee to join the Free Color Art Group
to confront Ostwald's scientific-technicist notion. Klee agreed to side against
Ostwald in public as a representative of the artist group in a special edition on
colors published by the Work Federation. Reversing a reproach that was usually
levelled against him and invoking his artistic experience, Klee reasoned confidently: "Scientists ofren see something infantile in artists. This time, the case in
question enables a mutuality The whole whitewash [as recommended by
Ostwald] furthermore goes past all transparent mixtures [glaze]. Not to mention the ignorance about the relativity of the color values. To universally stan-

'^' Letter of Paul Klee to Lily Klee, in PaulKlee, Briefe an die Familie 1893-1940, vol. 2: igo7-ig4O, ed.
Felix Klee (Kln: DuMont, 1979), 882 (my translation).
" ' Wilhelm Ostwald, Einfhrung in die Farbenlehre (Leipzig: Philipp Reclam, 1919). Vgl. Wolfgang
Kersten, "Paul Klee: 'ich und die Farbe sind eins.' Eine historische Kritik," Kunst-Bulletin des Schweizerischen Kunstvereins, no. 12, (Dezember 1987): 10-14.

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385

dardize the one possibility of harmonization through equal tonality is to seize

any mental sanity. We say thank you!"'* Klee's polemics served its purpose: On
4 April 1921, Hildebrandt told him that Ostwald had quit the German Work
Federation as a consequence of the article.
In January 1921, Klee started giving lessons at Bauhaus Weimar after having been appointed by Walter Gropius on 29 October 1920. In his lectures on
"Pictorial Theory of Form," structural analysis and morphogenesis were crucial
elements of his theory of art. Central to it were the terms "metamorphosis" and
"genesis" as constant movement and development, which he considered a kind
of reductionism of natural and artistic growth and form processes. Already in
1914 he had written in his diary: "Genesis as formal motion is the essential thing
in a work."'^ The affinity between processes of artistic creation and processes
of natural growth and development was one of the central postulates of Klee's
first published work of art theory, his essay "Schpferische Konfession" ("Creative Confession") for Kasimir Edschmid's anthology of 1920. By systematizing
creative material, by "reducing the contingent to its essence," the artist creates
a "formal cosmos" that is similar enough to the "great creation" that "a breath
suffices to make the religious expression religion itself"^" In this context, the
work of "reducing the contingent to its essence" is symbolically relatedfar
more than any formal or technical understandingto a morphogenetic concept of creation. This can be illustrated by an example taken from a lecture
"Beitrge zur Bildnerischen Formlehre" (Contributions to a Theory of Form),
delivered on 22 February 1922 Fig. 6), in which Klee accentuatedby analogy
with morphogenesis in naturethe correct ratio of the individual elements
of design and their "correct emphasis" respectively. "Wrong," as he explains
by depicting the parts of a plant, is the "emphasis" as it is shown on the lower
right hand sidean undifferentiated static stringing together of elements:
root, shoot axis, leaves, blossom. Correct, however, is the dynamic genesis of
form generated by the powers of growth, in which the following three main
complexes have to be distinguished: First, the potential of the seed, which is
held in the ground, and its active principle evolves by warmth and nutrient
illustrated by arrowsflowingtoward it and transforming it into the active principle, symbolized by the arrow pointing up. Complex 2: The sprout emerges,
and by absorbing light and oxygen, the respiratory organs develop, and so

*' Paul Klee, "Die Farbe als Wissenschaft," Das Werk: Mitteilungen des Deutschen Werkbundes 1,
Farben-Sonderheft (Oktober 1920): 8 (my translation).
'^* Klee, Diaries, no. 943, p. 310.
^"^ Klee, "Schpferische Konfession," 1920, i: Klee, Schriften, 121 (my translation).

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Afan

Figure 6: Paul Klee, Beitrge zur Bildnerischen Formlehre {Contributions to a

Theory ofForm), delivered on 22 February 1922
do the leaves, which multiply in a repetitive manner. Third, as a result of this
growth and form process, the blossom eventually develops, as a sign that the
plantas Klee writeshas "grown up."^'
Under the new prerequisites at the Bauhaus, which was then aiming at a
wider social acceptance, the focus of attention was, in contrast to the controversy with Ostwald four years ago, not an explicit demarcation from science
anymore but a methodological approach to the parallels between the artistic
and scientific analyses of the natural world. The artist, so Klee, subjects to his
penetrating examination "the finished form which nature places before him.
The deeper he looks, the more readily he can extend his view from the present
^" Paul Klee, Beitrge zur bildnerischen Formlehre, hrsg. Jrgen Glaesemer (Basel: Schwabe,
1979), 92 (my translation). See: www.kleegestaltungslehre.zpk.org.

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387

to the past."22 For the artist, just as for the scientist, analyticaleven, as it
were, microscopic^observation reveals insights into the genesis and structure
of objects that are not accessible to the superficial gaze. The comparison with
the microscope refers to the limited nature of conservative forms of seeing and
perception: "And is it not true that even the small step of a glimpse through
the microscope reveals to us images which we should deem fantastic and overimaginative if we were to see them somewhere accidentally, and lacked the
sense to understand them? Your realist, however, coming across such an illustration in a sensational magazine, would exclaim in great indignation: Is that
supposed to be nature? I call it bad drawing."^^ Klee offered the results of his
research in condensed form in his article "Wege des Naturstudiums" (Methods
of Studying Nature), which was printed in the magazine published for the
Bauhaus Week of 1923. "For the artist, the dialogue with nature remains a conditio sine qua non,"^'* declares the introduction; there follows a short historical account of how ways of seeing the natural world have changed over time.
Starting with a "barely differentiated study of phenomena," a purely optical
form of seeing, Klee outlines the way to a progressively deeper perception of
nature, the investigation of which is now focused on the "inner" structure of
the natural object: "knowledge of its internal structure reveals the significance
of the object beyond its mere appearance."^^ Beyond these "methods of internal perception," there are, finally, the approaches that bring the "self" into a
"relationship of resonance" with the object, and which go beyond its basis in
optics. Klee presented this way of seeing as a holistic system that integrates a
"common rootedness in the earth" with the visual relationship, and which at
the third and highest level incorporates the "metaphysical routes of cosmic
unity."^^ Klee inscribes all responsibilities and levels of perception in an integrating circle and hence in a holistic system: world, me/eye, you, and earth.
Nevertheless, no romantic amalgamation arises; however, what is shown here
are the structures of its manifold connections. Even though the text "Methods
of Studying Nature" features an all-embracing, ethical, cosmic worldview, it
places just as much value on structure analysis, which he had developed in his
lectures at the Bauhaus.
2=" Paul Klee, On Modem Art, translated by Paul Findlay, with an introduction by Herbert Read
(London: Faberand Faber, 194B). Originally published as ber die moderne Kunst (Bern-Bmpliz:
Benteli, 1945), 45. German page numbers are cited.
23> Ibid., 47-49.
2' Klee, "Wege des Naturstudiums," in: Paul Klee, Schriften, 124.
^^^ Ibid., 125 (my translation).
2 Ibid.

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In his classes at the Weimar Bauhaus, Klee tried to link his analytical view of
nature with his wider metaphysical view of the world. In addition to his early
lectures from 1921-22 in the Contributions to a Theory of Form, his second
cycle of lectures from autumn 1923 to spring 1924 dealt directly with a variety of
growth and development processes in nature. This was particularly true of the
chapter from his Principielle Ordnung (Principal Order), which Klee introduced
with sketches of the structures of plants and leaves. He explained their morphology in terms of the energies prevailing in the organism in question. The
sketches are referred to as "observational drawings of leaves showing the structural energies in leaf veins."^^ The tense relationship between energy, which
is linear... and mass, which is extensive"elsewhere Klee also speaks of the
"the power of linear radiation"produces an individual typology of leaf forms,
which includes three principal "energetic" types: an oval Urform, or "original
form," which results when the flow of sap is equally distributed, a "transitional
form," and a "hybrid form," such as the maple leaf, whose contours are "produced" and fundamentally determined by the strength of their energy, causing
individual inner forms to emerge (Fig. 7). This derivation of a variety of forms
from a single Urform is another indication of Klee's affinity with Goethe's
model of a "metaphysical Urpflanze," where the variety and the "variations
in plant forms" themselves "allow one to imagine a totality."^ Works like the
watercolor Illuminated Leaf (belichtetes Blatt), 1929, 274, for example, contain
essential elements from Klee's investigation into the morphology of leaves in
his Principielle Ordnung: the outline of the leaf appears as a variable, almost as
a series of formal possibilities, which is as much determined by the incidence
of light (photosynthesis) as it is by the morphogenetic energy of the flow of
liquids.
In his Bauhaus classes, the relationship between Klee's artistic work and his
analysis of structures and forms was a reciprocal one: findings from his analytical studies of the natural world were incorporated into visual structures, while
observations derived from his work processes or his experiences influenced
his artistic theoretical reflections, as is evident from the example of his color
theory. In his "Schpferische Konfession" of 1920, Klee had used the metaphor
of the tree as a "symbol" of the artist and the artistic process: The [artist's]
"orientation in terms of temperament and life" corresponds to the tree's "root
system," which carries water and minerals to the organism.^^ "Juicesflowto the
" ' Paul Klee, Bildnerische Gestaltungslehre, Principielle Ordnung BG I 2/2-5; www.kleegestal
tungslehre.zpk.org (my translation).
^^' Ihid., BG I 2/6; www.kleegestaltungslehre.zpk.org (my translation).
^^' Klee, "Schpferische Konfession," 1920,121 (my translation).

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389

Figure 7: Paul Klee, Teaching notes at pictorial creation (leaf structure),

lecture of 29.10.1923

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M. Baumgartner /Research in Phenomenotogy 43 (2013) 3/4-393

artist" from this "branching and subdividing order... passing through him and
through his eyes." The artist himself amounts to a "simple medium" like the
trunk of the tree, and his work is comparable to the tree's branches and leaves.
Just as the latter "unfolds and develops in every direction in time and space, so
too does the work." Klee's image of a tree had served as a conceptual metaphor
illustrating a central postulate of modern art and the newly founded Bauhaus,
namely, the rejection of the traditional demand that art should directly reflect
nature. "Nobody would affirm that the tree grows its crown in the image
of its root. Between above and below can be no mirrored reflection. It is
obvious that different elements must produce vital divergences."^"
Beyond that, in his Bauhaus lectures the tree turns into a metaphor to illustrate the inductive nature of principles ofform and structure. Thus the overall
structure of the tree is reflected in the construction of the leaf. Klee writes that
"in this pattern can be found ideas and relationships that form an image in
miniature of the pattern of the whole."^'Just as the tree itself is differentiated
into roots, trunk, and canopy, so too the canopy is differentiated into branches,
twigs, and leaves, and the latter in turn into the stalk, veins, and leaf tissue.
The correspondence between macro- and microcosmos is one of the basic constants in Klee's visual thinking and his understanding of the natural world.
Klee makes reference to the quantitative aspect of structural analysis, for
example the relations of numerical division in the manner in which leaf veins
branch and subdivide, and, following on from this, the differentiation of intersecting, alternating, or centripetal leaf forms. What he had introduced in his
lectures on Contributions to a Theory of Pictural Form as a fundamental relationship between "structural and compositional character," embraced by the
terms "dividual" (building stones) and "individual" (the consequent composed
organism), he applied in Principielle Ordnung, to plant organisms.^^
Every "individual" or "structured" form, every organism, is based upon "fundamental elements, which in the material sense are extremely important, but
which in the spiritual sense are of very minor significance," for instance, like
cells and atoms as the smallest structural units. Klee points out that those
basic elements have developed to have a function within the wider building
plan of nature: thus, for example, the conducting structures of capillary vessels
allow liquids to pass up and down the plant Klee also fruitfully made use of
^'" Klee, "ber die modeme Kunst," 13.
3" Paul Klee, Bildnerische Gestaltungslehre, Principielle Ordnung BG 12/2; (my translation).
^2' Klee, Beitrge zur bildnerischen Formlehre, 55; see also: www.kleegestaltungslehre.zpk.org.
(my translation).

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391

the principle of dividual and individual in his artistic work as one of the most
important forms of expression of natural structures and forms, in particular to
visualize the grovrth and development of plants.
Klee most systematically pursued this in his seminars on Planimetrische
Gestaltung (planimetric construction) at the Dessau Bauhaus. In his manuscripts on "planimetric construction," Klee systematized his analysis of the
processes of growth and development of plants and transferred them to the
field of geometry. Thus the notion of "causal" driving forces (analogous to seeds
in nature) is also central to deriving geometrical "elementary forms" from a
"charged point." Like the forms of leaves,flowers,or fruit, the latter were interpreted as the product of a dynamic process of development^^ In Klee's artistic
work there are numerous examples where the emergence of elementary geometrical forms are shown as being at one with processes of growth in nature.
In his chapter entitled "Progressionen" (Progressions),^* Klee is concerned with
natural forms as the result of geometrical "progressions": thus, for example,
he presents a palm leaf as a "progression" and "regression" of angles on the
basis of a circle divided into twenty-four sections or the progressive branching and differentiation of the leaf organs as vertically and diagonally directed
"regressions" (Fig. 8).
For all the importance to his artistic work of Klee's theoretical and analytical
examination, his works dealing with the natural world exhibit a high degree of
individual creative freedom. Both while teaching at the Bauhaus and later, Klee
made several hundred works on the subject of plant growth: the overwhelming majority of them are free visual inventions. In Klee's fantastic flora, plants
actually turn into "botanical actors," with physiognomies and feelings and with
the garden as their stage. These elements are combined, for example, in Klee's
famous painting Botanical Theatre {Botanisches Theater), 1934, 219, which covers a broad spectrum both technically and in terms of content: "painted" with
a brush, the imaginary plant beings seem to emerge from a transparent and yet
dark background. In his Botanical Theatre, Klee assembles a veritable museum
full of actors created from an inexhaustible reservoir of visual images and ideas
and incorporates them into an enigmatic scenography. Klee's imaginary nature
and plant life also fascinated the Surrealists. They were the first to recognize
the uniqueness of Klee's fantastic cosmology of nature. In an article entitled

33' Ibid.
3'" Paul Klee, Bildnerische Gestaltungslehre, Progressionen, BG II.19/1-96. See: www.kleegestal
tungslehre.zpk.org.

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M Baumgartner /Research in Phenomenology 43 (2013) 374-393

Figures: PaulKlee
Pictorial Creation: II.19 Progressions
Bildnerische Gestaltungslehre: II.19 Progressionen
Pencil and colored pencil on paper, 33 x 21 cm
Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern

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"Le dernier t," which appeared in the literary magazine Littrature in November 1922the earliest text to be published on the artist in FranceLouis Aragon compared Klee with a mysterious plant, a "witch's tooth" that was sprouting
leaves in Weimar (not in the Bauhaus): "C'est Weimar que fleurit une plante
qui ressemble la dent de sorcire. On ne sait pas encore que la jeunesse va
prfrer Paul Klee ses devanciers.''^^ The Surrealist metaphor of the "witch's
tooth" has associations of the perverse and the forbidden, of black magic, and
is typical of how Klee was perceived by the Surrealists. His art is like a strange
plant that has grown out of the depths of the subconscious. Six years later, this
vegetable metaphor was still being used. In his eulogy "Merci, Paul Klee," Ren
Crevel compares Klee's pictures with mysterious "dream plants" (plantes de
songe) and sees in Klee the true forerunner of the Surrealist approach to natural history: "Avant mme la merveilleuse histoire naturelle de Max Ernst, grce
vous [Paul Klee], dj, une flore et une faune surralistes nous vengeaient
des gazelles aux yeux trop bien peints, des hortensias hydrocphales et autres
littratures de nos jardins caducs.''^^
What is fascinating about Klee's imaginary plant life is that, regardless of all
its playfulness, it can only function as art because the fantasy of the faculty of
imagination is based on a thorough investigation of the structure and the morphology of plant life not only in terms of an analysis of its parts and organs but
as an insight into the laws of process-like growth in nature.

Louis Aragon: "Le dernier t," Littrature, no. 6 (1 November 1922): 20.
Ren Crevel, "Merci, Paul Klee, " Le Centaure, 3. ann. (December 1928), 5of.

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