Sketch drawing, paul klee

ART

PRAEGER PAPERBACKS $1.95 BY PAUL KLEE

PEDAGOGICAL SKETCHBOOK

INTRODUCTION AND TRANSLATION BY SIBYL MOHOLY-NAGY

87 illustrations

Klee collected his observations in his PEDAGOGICAL SKETCH intended as the basis for the course in design theory at the famous Bauhaus art school in Germany. From the simple phenomenon of interweaving lines, his work leads to the comprehension ofdefined planes-of structure, dimen sion, equilibrium, and motion. But he employs no abstract formulas. The student remains in the familiar world-a world that acquires new significance through the straight forward approach of Klee's simple, lucid drawings and his precise captions. Chessboard, bone, muscle, heart, a water wheel, a plant, railroad ties, a tightrope walker-these serve as examples for theforty-three design lessons. PEDAGOGICAL SKETCHBOOK is a vital contribution toward a more human, more universal goal in design education the work of a visionary painter who dedicated himself to the practical task of making people see. "A key to understanding of the art of Paul Klee, one which can be used most profitably by the art student."-College Art Journal.
BOOK,
This new translation wasprepared by the late SIBYL MOHOLY-NAGY, who followed Klee's text with the utmost fidelity. PRAEGER PUBLISHERS 111 Fourth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003

Paul Klee occupies a unique position among the creators of modern art. Although he shed all ties with conventional presentation, he developed a closer and deeper relationship to reality than did most painters of his time. Without any attempt atimitation or idealization, he recorded proportion, motion, and depth in space as the fundamental attributes of the visual world.

PRAEGER PUBLISHERS New York • Washington

BOOKS THAT MATTER Published in the United States of America in 1960 by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publisher, Seventh printing, 1972 The original edition of this book was published in 1953 by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., New York.111 Fourth Avenue, New York 3, N. Y.

This book by Paul Klee was f i rst published under the title Padagogisches Skizzenbuch 1925 as the second of the fourteen Bauhaus Books edited by Walter Gropius and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. has been retained. This edition was by Peter Bergman.

The original layout by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy composed at The Polyglot Press, New York, Copyright 1953 by Frederick A.Praeger, Inc.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Introduction and Translation by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy

INTRODUCTION

by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy "For the artist communication with nature remains the most essential condition. The artist is human; himself nature; part of nature within natural space."

This statement, written in 1923 by Paul Klee, was the Leitmotif of a creative life thatderived almost equal inspiration from painting and from music. Man painted and danced long before he learned to write and construct. The senses of form and tone are his primordial heritage. Paul Klee fused both of these creative impulses into a new entity. His forms are derived from nature, inspired by observation of shape and cyclic change but their appearance only matters in so far as it symbolizes an inner actuality that receives meaning from its relationship to the cosmos. There is a common agreement among men on the place and function of external features: eye, leg, roof, sail, star. In Paul Klee's pictures they are used as beacons, pointing away from the surface into a spiritual reality. Just as a magician performs the miraculous with ob jects of utter familiarity, such as cards,handkerchiefs, coins, rabbits, so Paul Klee uses the familiar object in unfamiliar relationships to mate rialize the unknown. The Symbolic Expressionists and the Cubists during the first decade of the Twentieth Century had already questioned the validity of Academic Naturalism. Their painting had looked below the surface with the analytical eye of psychology and x-ray. But the multi-layered figures...