Death and Fire
ArtistPaul Klee
Year1940
TypeOil and coloured paste on burlap[1]
Dimensions43 cm × 43 cm (17 in × 17 in)
LocationZentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland

Death and Fire, known in German as Tod und Feuer, is a 1940 expressionist painting by Paul Klee.

Meaning and History

Death and Fire was one of Klee's last paintings before his death on June 29th, 1940. In 1935 Klee started to suffer from scleroderma, which manifested itself with fatigue, skin rashes, difficulty in swallowing, shortness of breath and pain in the joints of his hands.[2] Paintings during this period tended to be simpler and representative of the suffering he was going through.[3] "Tod", the German word for death, is a common motif throughout the painting. It can be seen most distinctly in the features of the face, though the "d" and "t" are rotated. The word can also be seen in the figure's raised arm as the "T", the yellow orb as the "O", and the figure's head (or torso) as the "D".

Hieroglyphics

The painting also represents hieroglyphics, an interest of Klee's during this time,[4] which can also be seen in many of his other late 1930s paintings, such as Insula dulcamara (1938) and Heroische Rosen (1938). As of 2014, it is on display at Zentrum Paul Klee, a museum in Bern, Switzerland that is dedicated to the works of Paul Klee.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Death and Fire". Zentrum Paul Klee Collection. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
  2. ↑ Varga, J. (November 2004). "Illness and art: the legacy of Paul Klee". Current Opinion in Rheumatology. 16 (6): 714–717. doi:10.1097/01.bor.0000144759.30154.84. PMID 15577609.
  3. 1 2 Aronson, Jeffrey; Ramachandran, Manoj (2010-02-01). "The diagnosis of art: Scleroderma in Paul Klee – and Rembrandt's scholar?". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 103 (2): 70–71. doi:10.1258/jrsm.2009.09k079. PMC 2813781. PMID 22141181.
  4. ↑ "Death and Fire, 1940 by Paul Klee". Paul Klee.net. Retrieved 2014-05-16.
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