The Lovers’ Chronicle 18 December – transition – art by Paul Klee

18 December 2023 By Rhett 0 In Love, Poems, Quotes, Songs

Dear Zazie, Here is the Lovers’ Chronicle for today from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Whose words are important to you? Are their words enough? Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

as time passes i welcome, you

solo sonatas make me smile

but i welcome this duet

reflectin’ on the future of choice to make

you know what i want with the simplest

means, sketches in black and white

the conviction grows stronger,

this, the attraction becomin’

what was meant to be

minds becomin’ settled

into what was all along

meant to be

did we know then

what it was

and now what could be

feelin’ yet more heavily

an inextinguishable bond,

a mutual attraction

and the deepest

understandin’

could the years

of sacrifice

have been prelude

to what comes next

transitions
in a small hotel

i was comin’
and she was goin’

one night
when i could not sleep
i walked down to the lobby
and there she was

i made tea
and she joined me

we talked
all the way
to first light
about the places
we had been
about music,
and art,
and poetry

we saw each other
every night after that
we created a place
where we could be

and we danced

thanks bret

the hush, hoverin’
remindin’ me
of the vanished

“But don’t you miss
companionship?”
no not really

callin’ this, a needed
transitional phase
an interstitial place
of heightened Presence

learnin’ to cherish
the in-between-ness
of what-has-been-
shall-not-continue
and what-is-to-be-
is-yet-to-be-seen

the valley, golden hues and purple shades
the speakin’ west wind and cold silent night
and watchin’ eyes with their wonderful light
so wrought upon me that i should never
have left them at all

sunset and twilight give way to night
the wind whistles melancholy notes
the campfire burns down to red embers
a subtle difference apparent
in all of this or else
the shadowy change
is in us

More Than Just Words

Waitin
And anticipatin
Her touch
Her soft caress

Wishin
She was lyin near me
Right now
Right here with me

Dreamin
About bein with her
About
Us together

Hopin
Our time with each other
Will last
And have no end

Wantin for her all that she wants
From love
From this wide world

Needin
All that life can give me
I need
More than just words

Paul Klee
Paul Klee in 1911

Today is the birthday of Paul Klee (Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940 Muralto, Switzerland); artist. His style was influenced by movements in art that included Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented with and explored color theory. His lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre), published in English as the Paul Klee Notebooks, are held to be as important for modern art as Leonardo da Vinci’s A Treatise on Painting for the Renaissance. He and his colleague, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both taught at the Bauhaus school of art, design and architecture. His works reflect his dry humor and his sometimes childlike perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and his musicality.

Klee began studying art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He excelled at drawing but seemed to lack any natural color sense. He later recalled, “During the third winter I even realized that I probably would never learn to paint.” During these times of youthful adventure, Klee spent much time in pubs and had affairs with lower class women and artists’ models.

Klee married Bavarian pianist Lily Stumpf in 1906. They lived in a suburb of Munich, and while she gave piano lessons and occasional performances, he kept house and tended to his art work. His attempt to be a magazine illustrator failed. Klee’s art work progressed slowly for the next five years, partly from having to divide his time with domestic matters, and partly as he tried to find a new approach to his art. In 1910, he had his first solo exhibition in Bern, which then traveled to three Swiss cities.

Klee suffered from a wasting disease, scleroderma, toward the end of his life, enduring pain that seems to be reflected in his last works of art. One of his last paintings, Death and Fire, features a skull in the center with the German word for death, “Tod”, appearing in the face. He died in Muralto, Locarno, Switzerland, on 29 June 1940 without having obtained Swiss citizenship, despite his birth in that country. His art work was considered too revolutionary, even degenerate, by the Swiss authorities, but his request was accepted, six days after his death. The words on his tombstone, Klee’s credo: “I cannot be grasped in the here and now, For my dwelling place is as much among the dead, As the yet unborn, Slightly closer to the heart of creation than usual, But still not close enough.” He was buried at Schosshaldenfriedhof, Bern, Switzerland.

Gallery

My Room (German: Meine Bude), 1896. Pen and ink wash, 4¾ × 7½ inches. In the collection of the Klee Foundation, Bern, Switzerland

Flower Myth (Blumenmythos) 1918, watercolor on pastel foundation on fabric and newsprint mounted on board, Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany

Paul Klee as a soldier, 1916

Red Balloon, 1922, oil on muslin primed with chalk, 31.8 x 31.1 cm. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Tropical Gardening, 1923 watercolor and oil transfer drawing on paper, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Nocturnal Festivity, 1921, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Tale à la Hoffmann (1921), watercolor, ink, and pencil on paper. 31.1 × 24.1 cm. In the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Dame mit Sonnenschirm, 1883–1885, pencil on paper on cardboard, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern

Hilterfingen, 1895, ink on paper, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Third Invention: Jungfrau im Baum, 1903, etching, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Sixth Invention: Zwei Männer, einander in höherer Stellung vermutend, begegnen sich, 1903, etching, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern

Aged Phoenix,1905,etching, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Fenster und Palmen, 1914, watercolor on grounding on paper on cardboard, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich

In den Häusern von St. Germain, 1914, watercolor on paper on cardboard, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern

Föhn im Marc’schen Garten, 1915, watercolor on paper on cardboard, Lenbachhaus, Munich

Acrobats, 1915, watercolor, pastel and ink on paper, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

In Engelshut, 1931, watercolor and colored inks on paper, mounted on paper, Guggenheim Museum

Red/Green Architecture (yellow/violet gradation), 1922, oil on canvas on cardboard mat, Yale University Art Gallery, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Senecio, 1922, oil on gauze, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel

Fright of a Girl, 1922, Watercolor, India ink and oil transfer drawing on paper, with India ink on paper mount, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York