Some quality in Klee’s paintings
asserts assuredly they are his,
and childish is a general word
quite often used for this,
but does it cover content,
range of line and colour,
skill, detail and precision or define his tone and humour?
Has he a childish sense of fun,
or is he satirical, more adult, harder?
Klee's world is strange and new,
fresh as that of children,
so 'childlike' rings a bell at times,
recalls their innocence yet fear,
like animals scenting the air,
his curious figures stare at us
or at what attracts their gaze.
With childhood moods and feelings,
they see with different eyes.
A child when sad can droop like a flower,
then happily splash in a puddle,
laugh when things go wrong,
refusing to do what big people say.
They can scream and shout and stamp
when not allowed their own way.
They play games before they can read,
love pictures, draw matchstick figures,
create enormous scary monsters
with staring eyes and huge fangs.
Their fingers run free in squiggles and scribbles.
They take, like Klee, a line on a walk,
pen odd scarecrows, weird faces.
But could they draw like Klee,
tightrope walkers, delicately poised?
Klee shapes a gyroscopic beauty,
precise blocks, triangles, serene horizontals,
but then spells danger, a red sun in the centre.
Thick black beams bar the paintings.
Arrows point upward or downwards
or forward or backward. Time runs
all ways along Klee's line but it is still
playtime for Klee, with balloons, curves,
figures raising arms, shouting hurrah,
while he sits sedate in an easy chair,
aware of shadows, a jackboot Kaiser,
clay feet comical and sinister.
Klee hat ein Vogel and In ’40
the Prussian, soldier and the Fuhrer
strut, stalk in a playground,
while like a child Klee colours in,
like an adult he figures out,
adrift at times in melancholy blue,
encompassed by a thick black cage,
awash with music and sound,
Zwei Vogel stossen zusammen.
clash in an adult world,
not childish but somehow childlike,
macabre, curious, sensing fear,
having fun, forever moving.
©Terry Hodgson2020