Paul Klee > Quotes

“One eye sees, the other feels.”
― Paul Klee

“A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller.”
― Paul Klee

“A line is a dot that went for a walk.”
― Paul Klee

“Art does not reproduce what we see. It makes us see.”
― Paul Klee

“Art does not reproduce the visible; it makes visible.”
― Paul Klee

“Color has got me. I no longer need to chase after it. It has got me for ever. I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour.”
― Paul Klee

“One day I will lie nowhere
with an angel at my side.”
― Paul Klee

“Art does not reproduce what is visible, it makes things visible.”
― Paul Klee

“Becoming is superior to being.”
― Paul Klee

“Colour and I are one.”
― Paul Klee

“It is the artistic mission to penetrate as far as may be toward that secret ground where primal law feeds growth.”
― Paul Klee

“After all, it's rather difficult to achieve the exact minimum, and it involves risks.”
― Paul Klee

“Art should be like a holiday: something to give a man the opportunity to see things differently and to change his point of view.”
― Paul Klee

“Art does not reproduce the visible rather, it makes visible.”
― Paul Klee, 100 Paul Klee Masterpieces.

“I cannot be grasped in the here and now. For my dwelling place is as much among the dead as the yet unborn. Slightly closer to the heart of creation than usual. But not nearly close enough.”
― Paul Klee

“Art does not render what is visible, but renders visible.”
― Paul Klee

“My self… is a dramatic ensemble. Here a prophetic ancestor makes his appearance. Here a brutal hero shouts. Here an alcoholic bon vivant argues with a learned professor. Here a lyric muse, chronically love-struck, raises her eyes to heaven. Here papa steps forward, uttering pedantic protests. Here the indulgent uncle intercedes. Here the aunt babbles gossip. Here the maid giggles lasciviously. And I look upon it all with amazement, the sharpened pen in my hand. A pregnant mother wants to join the fun. ‘Pshtt!’ I cry, ‘You don’t belong here. You are divisible.’ And she fades out.”
― Paul Klee

“I imagined face and genitals to be the corresponding poles of the female sex, when girls wept I thought of pudenda weeping in unison.”
― Paul Klee

“The artist does not ascribe to the natural form of appearance the same convincing significance as the realists who are his critics. He does not feel so intimately bound to that reality, because he cannot see in the formal products of nature the essence of the creative process. He is more concerned with formative powers than with formal products.”
― Paul Klee

“To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers.”
― Paul Klee

“Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern Kunst macht sichtbar.”
― Paul Klee

“imagine you are dead. after many years of exile you are permitted to cast a single glance earthward. you see a lampost and an old dog lifting his leg against it. you are so moved that you cannot stop sobbing.”
― Paul Klee

“L’art ne reproduit pas le visible, il rend visible.”
― Paul Klee

“Την άνοιξη του 1901 έβαλα το εξής πρόγραμμα:
Υπεράνω όλων η τέχνη της ζωής. Κατόπιν, ως ιδανικό επάγγελμα: η ποιητική τέχνη και η φιλοσοφία -ως πραγματικό επάγγελμα: οι πλαστικές τέχνες -και τέλος, ελλείψει πόρων ή εισοδημάτων: η τέχνη της εικονογράφησης.

- Paul Klee, “Τα ημερολόγια 1898-1918” (τ. Α)”
― Paul Klee, The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918

“A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller”
― Paul Klee, 100 Paul Klee Masterpieces.