I’m reading a fascinating piece about Paul Klee by Claude Cernuschi called ‘Paul Klee and Language’ (in ‘Paul Klee Philosophical Vision: From Nature to Art’, John Sallis editor, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Distributed by The University of Chicago Press 2012). One insight suggested by this article is that Klee’s use of symbols, icons and ideograms is not consistent across all his works. This is important for me to know, since I have been trying to find a uniform system that he used to express himself. With over 9,000 works that he completed in his lifetime, it is a relief to be able to change focus to other aspects of his art.

One of the sections of Cernuschi’s paper concerns Klee’s use of alphabetic letters and other letter-like symbols. In certain pieces, Klee uses letters for some purpose. Cernuschi suggests that using alphabetic characters as facial features activates two different parts of viewers’ brains, apparently making the art more interesting (my conclusion).

Below is a portrait made only from alphabetic characters