Forest Witches 1938

Paul Klee, sometime in his career, made this piece, "Forest Witches," maybe with gouache, or watercolor, or something like that, but look at how he draws. It's all about a childlike process. He's working with color to generate a kind of earthy, almost alchemical mood – you can almost smell the forest floor. The paint is applied in thin washes, allowing the paper's texture to peek through, lending a sense of transparency and lightness to the composition. I see figures, maybe the titular witches, rendered in a semi-abstract way, their forms suggested by simple lines and shapes. Look at the way he uses the black outline to define the shapes, giving them a graphic, almost cartoonish quality. It's a bit like looking at a children's book. Klee’s work always reminds me of Miró or maybe even Guston, that shared sense of whimsy, and the way they both embrace ambiguity. We're not meant to decipher a fixed meaning, but to engage with the image on an intuitive level, letting our imaginations fill in the gaps.