Athlete’s Head 1932

Paul Klee seems to have made this ‘Athlete’s Head’ out of tiny hatched marks, like the painting emerged from the surface, bit by bit, almost as if it had been pixelated before pixels were even a thing. You know, when I look at this, I feel a lot of sympathy for Klee. I mean, imagine spending so long making all those marks! He must have been in a meditative state, just him and the watercolor, hatching away. I guess that’s what it takes to make something so simple and yet so subtly strange. Look how a simple triangle serves as a nose! I always wonder, what was he thinking? Was he trying to capture the essence of athleticism through simple geometric forms? Or was he just playing around with the idea of a head, seeing how little information he could use to convey a sense of human presence? Klee’s like that, always inviting you to complete the thought. He’s whispering to us across time and space, isn’t he?