Around the Fish
Klee, Paul
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Date
1926Description
A garnished platter of fish is surrounded by a constellation of seemingly disparate elements—a cross, full and crescent moons, an exclamation point, a forked red flag—all hovering against a dark abyss. Some of Klee's iconography grew out of his teaching; the arrow, which he initially used as a teaching tool to indicate force and emotion for his students at the Bauhaus, here points confrontationally towards a stylized head, possibly alluding to human consciousness. Although they are often enigmatic, Klee believed his personal hieroglyphs and figurative elements had wider connotations: "The object grows beyond its appearance through our knowledge of its inner being, through the knowledge that the thing is more than its outward aspect suggests." full view
Type of Work
Oil paintingSubject
Icons, Fishes in art, Art, Modern --20th century, Art, Swiss -- 20th century
Rights
Rights Statement
Licensed for educational and research use by the MIT community only
Item is Part of
131035