Comedians’ Handbill 1938

Paul Klee made Comedians’ Handbill, and it’s like, what a playful dance of forms! It's a party of black lines and shapes on this beige background. You can almost imagine Klee moving around the canvas, doodling and letting these little figures emerge, it's like a performance, I bet it was spontaneous. I can imagine Klee, brush in hand, thinking about the commedia dell’arte, maybe improvising along with those characters. The pink dots add a softness to the heavy black lines. I love the way the paint isn’t overworked, you know? It’s just right, immediate. The texture is smooth, the paint thin, allowing the figures to exist in a playful space. I keep looking at this one shape and it could be anything - a face, a tool, I can see his whole world and other paintings in this one work. Artists are always talking to each other, even across time. Klee's work keeps inspiring so many painters to embrace the weird, the personal, the not-quite-finished. Isn’t it great?