Departure of the Ships

Each month we are trying to feature one great art collection. In May it will be Zentrum Paul Klee from Bern :) Enjoy and have a great Sunday!

Depictions of ships and boats appear throughout the whole of Klee's work. But a striking accumulation of the theme is apparent at the end of the 1920s. After his holidays on the island of Elba in 1926, Klee travelled in the summer of the following year to the small island of Porquerolles off the Southern coast of France. At the end of August he sailed from there on a ship to Corsica, so the greater number of depictions of harbors and ships during those years can hardly come as a surprise. He writes from Porquerolles to his wife Lily: “Here and there I see ships drifting across the blue sea, and I yearn to be on the move”.

In the painting Departure of the Ships from 1927, geometrically constructed forms in bright colours stand out against a dark background. The ships and their sails are formed in rhythmic superimposition of individual planes. They are captured in shades of pink and red. A circle in cool blue, probably the full moon, floats above the whole composition. Opposite this, on the lower right-hand edge, there are triangular shapes, also painted in cool shades, that look like cliffs. A small arrow stands as a symbol for the movement mentioned in the title, the departure of the ships.

From 1921, Klee worked as a teacher at the Bauhaus in Weimar, and later in Dessau. Amongst other things, during his time at the Bauhaus, he engaged with the rhythmical articulation of planes. But as a virtuoso violinist Klee also referred to the rhythm and polyphony of music. Thus, for example, he followed the movement of the conductor's baton and transposed it into lines. The sails of the painted ships refer to this preoccupation with music.