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Das bildnerische Denken. Schriften zur Form- und Gestaltungslehre by Paul Klee
Review by: Georgine OeriThe Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Sep., 1957), pp. 140-141Published by: Wileyon behalf of The American Society for AestheticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/427143.
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140
REVIEWS
First, Gauguin proceeds
to
Tahiti
already
in
possession
of the
image
of
the
tropics
from
a
journey
to
Martinique,
Baird
says;
but the
journey
to
Panama
and
Martinique
is
not
the
first
station,
nor
is it the decisive station
before
Gauguin's
Pacific
journey.
Second,
his moral view is already formulated by a tradition of his predecessorsin Oceania, Baird
says;
but the
point
is
how he
accepted
or
criticized these
predecessors.
He
disliked
Loti's
moral
attitude,
he read
Leconte de
Lisle's
poems,
but
especially
he used Moerenhout's
more
than
fifty-year-old
books on the
Pacific. This
last source
is
of
great
importance
for
the
understanding
of
Gauguin's
primitivism.
His
manuscript
on the Catholic
religion
shows
his
particular
ambition to reconcile modern
science, religion,
and
primitivism.
Now it
may
be said
that
Baird does not
have
to be a
specialist
on
Gauguin.
But
I think
he has
to
be
if
his
comparisons
between
Melville
and
Gauguin
are to be taken
seriously.
Melville's
art . . .
merges
with
the
symbolic
elements
of
Gauguin's
art rather
than
with
the
representational
matter
of
William
Sidney
Mount's
paintings
of the American
frontier.
A
statement
of
this sort
I
cannot
discuss
until
I
know if Baird can show
what Melville
and
Gauguin
had
in
common.
A
discussion
of
this sort is not
performed
in
Baird's
book;
because of such a lack I think that there is something wrong in his method.
TEDDY BRUNIUS
KLEE,
PAUL.
Das
bildnerische Denken.
Schriften
zur Form- und
Gestaltungslehre.
Heraus-
gegeben
und bearbeitet
von
Jiirg
Spiller.
Basel,
1956,
Benno
Schwabe
& Co.
Verlag,
pp.
572,
more
than
1200
ills., many
in
color,
76.00 S. Frs.
I
would like to stress from
the outset that
my
willingness
[to
teach]
is based
on
the
realization
that
in
the
long
run
I
can
not,
in
good conscience,
avoid
assuming
a
serious
teaching activity.
It
seems to me
most
important
for
you
to
emphasize
the fact that
you
want
an
artist
for an
instructor who
is alive and
contemporary
enough
in
spirit
to
direct
young
people.
This was how
Paul
Klee stated-in the summer
of
1919,
at the
age
of
forty,
his reputation as an artist firmly established-his role as a teacher, which was to absorb
and
fulfill him thereafter
for
more
than a
decade
during
his
years
of
maturity.
As
it turned
out,
he did
not
join
the
faculty
of the
Stuttgart Academy
of
Art-Oskar
Schlemmer,
to whom
the cited
letter was
addressed,
could
not
secure his
appointment
against
the
opposition
of
conservative
faculty
members-but
a
year later,
in
the
fall of
1920,
he
accepted
the unanimous call from
Gropius
and six other
Bauhaus
instructors to
become
a
master
at
the
Bauhaus
in
Weimar.
Shortly
after
he
had
established
himself,
Klee
wrote to
his
wife: Here
in
the studio I
am
working
at
a
half a dozen
paintings,
I
draw
and
I
keep
thinking
about
my course, every-
thing simultaneously,
for it
has
to
work
together
or
else
it will
not
work at all. The
organic
unity
of
it
preserves my
strength.
It is
this
coincidence
that
Klee
the
artist
and
Klee the
teacher
functioned
harmoniously
and in mutual stimulation-that he not
only
was able but felt the need to
operate
in both
areas
at
once
in
order
to
come to
the
realization
of
his
potential-which
has resulted
in
his
writings
on
pictorial thinking,
presented
here
for
the first time.
The
presentation
is excellent.
It
appears
to be an
accomplishment
of
cooperation
be-
tween
editor and
publisher
which makes itself
felt
throughout,
affecting
seemingly
minor
details
of
layout
and
typography.
The
arrangement
between
text and
illustration follows
as
closely
as
possible plans
which
Klee
himself had worked on.
It is
not
only
a
matter
of
reproducing
all
the
charts
and
illustrations
Klee
had
invented to
explain
and
amplify
his
ideas
on
pictorial
organization
in
his classes. The
theoretical
part
is
broadened and
eluci-
dated-in
a
score-like
orchestration of
simultaneous
presence-with
reproductions
of the
free,
creative
work
by
the artist.
Jiirg Spiller accomplished this editorial job with faithful and discerning devotion.
Beyond
it
he
indefatigably
annotated
the main text of
Klee's
classroom notebooks
with
marginal
additions the artist
himself
made later
on,
as
his
experience
and
insight
increased.
In
addition
there
is
an
appendix
which
furnishes notes for
comparison,
drawn
from Klee's
diaries
and
correspondence,
and
gives
a
vast
amount of
cross reference
to
publications
on Klee
as well as
reference
to
works
by
him
reproduced
elsewhere.
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REVIEWS
141
What
emerges
is
an
intimate
picture
of
the creative
personality
Paul
Klee,
if
not, indeed,
of the
creative
personality.
One
participates
in
the
creative
process
in
a
way
that seems
to
be
unprecedented.
Singular
circumstances
had
to
converge
for its
recording.
The
artist
who
was
engaged
in
not
merely rendering
the
seen,
but
revealing
the
invisible was
en-
dowed with
poetic
powers
which enabled
him to
seize the
abundance
of his
imagination
also
in
word
images.
GEORGINEOERI
WINGLER,
HANS MARIA. Oskar Kokoschka.
Das
Werk
des Malers.
Salzburg, 1956,
Verlag
Galerie
Welz,
pp.
401
including
131
full-page
ills.
in
black and
white,
35
full-page plates
in
color,
and 39 ills.
in
the text.
(Price
not
quoted.)
This
is
an
imposing opus,
an
indispensable
source-book destined
to
play
as
important
a
role
in
the
literature on
Kokoschka
as
did
Lionello Venturi's
catalogue
raisonng
of
C6-
zanne's work
in
the
literature
on
Cezanne.
In Mr.
Wingler's volume,
the
oeuvreof
Kokoschka
the
painter
is
reproduced
in its
entirety,
partly
on
full-size
plates
and
partly
in
reduced
size in the oeuvre catalogue. As the author himself states, in the literature of art criticism,
subjectivity
has
so
far stood in
the
way
of
any
all-embracing,
objective
examination
of
Kokoschka's work
and
the time
is not
yet
ripe
for
a
full
and
comprehensive interpretation,
which would
have
to
include a consideration of the
psychological
aspect.
The
complete
enumeration
of
the
total
work of
Kokoschka,
in
the first
place
that
of
his
paintings,
is
the
object
of
this
publication,
which is
to
be
followed
at some
interval
by
a
similar
book
dealing
with his
graphic
work. In ten
years
of
conscientious
work
the author has com-
pleted
this
task with
great
patience
and devotion.
In
the
introductory essay
to this
large-
size
volume
(23
x
30
cm)
he
now
adds
his own to
the
existing subjective
views. On
74
pages,
the character
and
history
of
Kokoschka's art are discussed and well
documented;
the
prob-
lems
of color
and
composition
in
relation
to
the
subject
matter are
analyzed-a very
im-
portant problem especially in the case of this master. In the last chapter of his essay the
author deals
with the function of the
picture,
at the same time
demonstrating
the
artist's
philosophy
of
life and his
views
on
aesthetics.
Two
contributions
by
Kokoschka
supple-
ment the
essay:
the
lecture
On the Nature
of
Visions,
written in
1912,
and
the hitherto
unprinted study,
The
Essentials
of
the Visual
Arts,
especially
written
for
this
volume.
In
the two sections of
the latter
contribution, Non-Objective
Art and
The
Eye
of
Darius,
Kokoschka defends
his
world view and discusses
current abstract
tendencies in
art.
The
introductory part
of
the book
contains
44
illustrations. Of these
5
are
full-page
color
reproductions (watercolors
and one
poster)
and
4
small-size colored
reproductions
of
pastels.
The
full-page
plates
(131
black and white and
30
color
reproductions)
make
up
the
main
part
of
the
volume. Of excellent
quality, they bring
Kokoschka's
work
as
close
to
the reader as is
possible
with
a
great
colorist
in
this
form.
The oeuvre catalogue of
paintings
(394 titles), of
plastic
and other works
(17
titles)
which
follows,
is
accompanied by
several Classified Indices. Most
important
of
these
is
the Index
according
to
Subject
Matter. The
Bibliography
is
an
heroic
attempt
at com-
pleteness
and the
author
probably
comes close to
achieving
this
objective.
In
its first
sec-
tion,
it
comprises
a list
of
publications by Kokoschka,
in
the second
section a list
of
publica-
tions
on
Kokoschka
as
well as an Index
of
Catalogues.
An
Alphabetical
List
of
Publications
provides
a
key
to this
documentary
part comprising
700
titles.
The
art
historian and the
future
biographer
of
Kokoschka will
find
the
concluding
sec-
tion
of
the
book,
entitled
Synchronized
Summary,
especially
helpful.
In
chronological
order it
gives
the
most
important
data
from
the life and work
of
the
artist-events,
jour-
neys,
meetings,
the
work
itself,
publications,
performances
of
plays,
and
exhibitions
and
catalogues-from 1886 to June 1956.
J.
P.
HODIN
LAMPSON,
DOMINIQUE.
Les
Effigies
des Peintres
Celkbres
des
Pays-Bas.
Edition
critique
par
Jean
Puraye.
Brussels and
Paris, 1956,
Desclee de
Brouwer,
pp.
71.
The reasons
which
lead
us to
grant
a
particular
welcome
to
modern editions of
some of
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