The Thistle Flower House 1919

Paul Klee built this dreamlike space, The Thistle Flower House, with oil on paper mounted on cardboard. Look at the dark red, mossy green, and inky blacks that bleed and blossom in this compact oval, punctuated by the strange, glowering thistle. I imagine Klee hunched over this small surface, coaxing a whole world into being. The paint seems thin, like watercolour, allowing for those gorgeous drips and blurry edges. Notice the spindly, stick-like trees, tottering between representation and abstraction. And that curious structure in the center, the ‘house’ itself – is it a building, a flower, or a little of both? Klee’s paintings always feel like visual poems. Like his contemporary, Kandinsky, Klee wanted to make paintings like music. These little marks are like notes, each contributing to a bigger harmony of colour and form. Artists are always talking to one another, across time and space. Klee’s playful spirit, his openness to chance and improvisation, resonates with the work of so many painters who came after him.