Architecture of the Plain 1923

Paul Klee made this watercolor, "Architecture of the Plain," sometime between the wars, and it sits here in Berlin. The overlaid grid of color gives me a feeling of lightness, almost as if the image might float away. I can just imagine Klee, bent over his table, gently coaxing these rectangles of color into existence. The blue, pink, and yellow hues create a sense of serene harmony, but there’s also something a little haunting about the regularity of the composition. It makes me wonder about the human desire for order amidst the messiness of life. I reckon Klee must have been exploring the boundaries between abstraction and representation; the architectural structure hints at a landscape, but never fully resolves into one. Thinking about it, I feel like all painters are in a constant conversation across time, borrowing and responding to each other’s ideas in a kind of beautiful, ongoing exchange. This piece is a reminder that painting is all about exploration, embracing the unknown, and finding meaning in the act of creation itself.