FREE ESSAY ON DESTROYED PLACE

DESTROYED PLACE

Paul Klee is a famous Surrealist painter, regarded by the Nazis as a degenerate artist.
Born on December 18, 1879, in Munchenbuchsee near Bern, Switzerland, Klee enters the most
prestigious art school in Germany, the Munich Academy, at the age of 21. Shortly
thereafter, he moves to Munich and travels throughout Europe studying impressionist
artwork and incorporating color into his work far more than in previous years. In 1910 he
gets his own private exhibition in Bern, and from this point on he works with such
artists as Wassily Kandinsky and August Macke. In 1916 his works become extremely
desirable to the public. At this point he returns to Munich and has a huge exhibition,
displaying 362 of his works. Klee then is admitted to the Bauhaus to teach art, until he
comes down with scleroderma in 1936 and dies in 1940.
Destroyed Place, an oil painting on cardboard, surrounded with silver, by Paul Klee, now
resides in Lenbachhaus, a museum in Munich, Germany. This painting was completed in 1920,
and is very mysterious in both meaning and appearance. The top of the painting is bright
and calm, rather than destroyed. It soon becomes very dark, depicting the scary setting
of the painting, due to the death and destruction which previously occurred at the sight
of the painting. The cross atop the hill in the background of the painting is suggestive
of the burial site of Jesus Christ. The other crosses scattered across the painting
reinforce the theme of death through their repetitive use in the painting. The foreground
of this painting is at the bottom where the green hump is a gravestone, and the two hands
are anthropomorphic. The triangular shape on the right side of the painting suggests that
something is emerging from the ground. Perhaps it is going to evolve into something not
similar to the two hands of people killed in the First World War coming back from the
dead. The cruciform iconography greatly suggests the destruction that occurred during
World War I, while the cross in the window of the main building indicates that all of the
windows had crosses in them until they were destroyed in the war, as well as that it was
a place of worship. Remains of some of the crosses can be seen in the windows, along with
the red coloring, suggestive of blood or fire. The two other buildings in the painting
are not standing upright, indicating further destruction beyond what is included within
the painting. The theme of this particular painting by Klee is primarily dark throughout
this painting, with the occasional red paint, suggestive exclusively of the violence
prevalent at the site of the painting. This effectively reinforces the sense of a
destroyed place, hence the title of the painting. This painting, along with others from
around 1920, demonstrates a mastery of elegant color synchronization used by Klee to
create semiabstract compositions such as this piece, which also demonstrates his use of
individualism, surrealism and atmospheric perspective. 
Klee, much like Kandinsky, his colleague at Bauhaus, turns away from nature in his art,
while continuing to be a surrealist. Surrealism is art in which one paints complex
symbols, such as the hand and the gravestone in Destroyed Place, and observers must
analyze the piece and these abstract and complex symbols integrated into the painting in
order to understand the intended meaning of the piece. This piece is dissimilar to many
of Klee's other pieces, in that he does not use cubism throughout his entire painting.
Rather than using cubism, and painting with intersecting lines and many other shapes,
Klee is attempting, in this painting, to replicate an actual scene of destruction. This
piece has a true meaning, unlike many of his other abstract pieces.
This piece integrates some of the qualities of old paintings used by painters as far back
as the Renaissance period of art. These qualities include individualism and atmospheric
perspective. Individualism, or the value of being an individual, and reflections of one's
beliefs, is portrayed greatly in this piece. Klee, a resident of Germany, did not approve
of the deaths occurring throughout his home country during the Great War, and painted
this piece in order to demonstrate his feelings toward those who died, and to let others
know about the destruction occurring in this war. Atmospheric perspective is used very
effectively in this painting at the point where the gravestone looks very large, and the
colors brighten a bit, signifying that the destruction is not personally affecting those
observing the painting. The path leading to the house, however, demonstrates that the
destruction is not far away, and anybody could very easily travel down this path and
encounter destruction and death.
Bibliography
Harden, Mark. "Destroyed Place,", May 2000.
Christian, Kevin. "Paul Klee Chronological Biography and Timeline,"
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/kevin_christian/kleebio.htm, May 2000.
2000.