Day 240

I'm reading The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898 - 1918. Klee had a bit of the compulsive in him and each of his entries is uniquely numbered though some numbers are missing. He mentions the new music he hears; Schubert's No. 6, the Pastoral and "a newly discovered so-called Mozart Violin Concerto No. 7 with too large an orchestra. A doubtful pleasure, to be truthful about it."





He describes various experimental techniques he tries as he labors to pull his unique style from his training in art from nature. Even now I feel a bit of the voyeur as he writes about his frustrations, the birth of his son, his fears and his discoveries.


A few favorite entries:

Today they took my cat away from me and I had to look on while it disappeared in a sack. I understood at last what words had not succeeded in making clear to me. It was a cat that had been borrowed to catch mice for a period of time. And I had already given away my heart.


Too bad that the early Van Gogh was so fine a human being, but not so good as a painter, and that the later, wonderful artist is such a marked man. A mean should be found between these four points of comparison; then, yes! Then one would want to be like that oneself.


He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise.

Armed with binoculars, went hunting in the fields outside town. This is the best way to outwit one's models. They suspect nothing, and their poses and faces are natural.

I cannot find sleep. In me the fire still glows, in me it still burns here and there. Seeking a breath of fresh air, I go to the window and see all the lights darkened outside. Only very far away a small window is still lit. Is not another like me sitting there? There must be some place where I am not completely alone! And now the strains of an old piano reach me, the moans of the other wounded person.

For, in art, everything is best said once and in the simplest way.


Otherwise, I'm working and doing mom stuff, thinking when there's quiet, not thinking when I can swing it. Hope your week is going well.


g'night