The place of the twins 1929

Paul Klee made this abstract image, The Place of the Twins, with block printing, which I think is so interesting. I love seeing how artists use processes like this to get unexpected results. There is something very dreamlike about the way that Klee has used the woodblock, the thin layers of color let the texture of the paper show through, and make the image feel very delicate. You can almost feel the warmth of the red against the cooler grays of the central forms, these 'twins'. They could be land formations, or strange faces, or just shapes. Look at the drips and lines within each of the twins, they don't quite match, and this makes me think of the ways that siblings can be so similar and so different at the same time. Klee, like Kandinsky, was interested in spiritual abstraction, and in finding new ways to think about what an image can be. Klee invites us to bring our own interpretations, seeing art as a space of possibility.