inspired and impressed by Paul Klee at Tate Modern

We begin with the quote "Art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes visible...and so begins the journey tracing the life and art of a truly gifted man. Paul Klee was born in December 1879 near Bern, in Switzerland and was an accomplished violinist before becoming an artist, teacher and writer. He lived through a tumultous time in German art and history, which has surely influenced his life and art.

He joined the expressionist 'Der Blaue Reiter' group near Munich in 1911. Here he was influenced by the bright colours and move towards abstraction of Wasily Kandinsky, Franz Marc and Gabriele Muenter. I remember visiting the Yellow house and Museum in Murnau, in the beutiful lakeland hills south of Munich.Such a pity this idyll was dismantled at the start of the first world war.Ten years later, he joins the teaching staff at the Bauhaus in Weimar, relocates the school to Dessau in 1925 and eventually resigns in 1931. He is named as one of the degenerate artists by the Nazis and moves back to his native Switzerland, where he dies early from a degenerative disease in 1940.

This history merely provides a backdrop of world events which also mirror some amazing changes in his creative strategies and work. It seems that he was pre-occupied with lines, squares and colour gradations from the beginning. It is not clear whether his ability to teach influenced the logic and repetitive rigour of his work. What is clear is his creative experimentation with styles and techniques. He loved texture and experimented with mixed methods in so many ways. He demonstrated the magic of the square, and interspersed them with rectangles, triangles and other shapes, in simple and complex tonal patterns, with impressive effects. I am particularly fascinated by his oil transfer technique where he traces over a wet oiled paper for a stunning effect.

He also uses small motifs to create patterns and stories. It feels like some of his pictures are visual dairies, and then I realised that he did actually write and reflect on his work. He seemed to be able to mix the logic of design and colour with the spontaneity of abstraction and surrealism in a visually balanced and aesthetically pleasurable manner. I felt that he was able to connect art and science in his work, and wonder whether being a teacher helped him to make that more transparent for others. I especially loved his quote "where intuition is is combined with exact research, it speeds up the progress of research". The current retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern is brilliantly curated, across 17 rooms, with works from public and private collections across the world. It is both moving and educative. I had trouble choosing one favourite, as I would have liked one form each room, or genre of his painting.