A pressure of Tegernsee 1919

Paul Klee made this small watercolour, A Pressure of Tegernsee, using various colours. It feels like he built it up, shape by shape, dab by dab. Look closely, and you can see how the washes of colour sit on the surface. The way the blues and reds mingle at the top is beautiful, it's not quite blended, but it's not quite separate either. The texture is soft and granulated. See how the circular form at the top floats within the blue? It's almost like a sun, but it's also a very active, unsettled shape, full of little variations in tone. This is the feeling of Klee's paintings overall - they're not static, they're always moving. It reminds me of Joan Miró, who also managed to create whole worlds within small, intimate formats. Both understood that art is less about making a perfect image, and more about creating a space for the imagination to roam.