Pierrot Lunaire 1924

Paul Klee created this unsettling image of Pierrot Lunaire sometime in the early twentieth century with oil on gauze and cardboard. In it we see the alienated, moonstruck clown of symbolist poetry, a figure associated with morbidity, madness, and social isolation. The Pierrot figure was widely known through popular songs and cabarets of the Weimar Republic, where Klee was teaching at the Bauhaus. But his is not a figure of entertainment. The image emerges through the soft-focus application of color, giving the impression of someone lost in thought and removed from society. The image might be read as a commentary on the psychological effects of living in a rapidly changing world, where traditional social structures were being overturned and where alienation was the norm. To learn more, look for publications on the Bauhaus, as well as critical studies of Weimar culture and Expressionism. With a grasp of social history, we come to see how art can express the unspoken anxieties of a particular time and place.