squares 1~5

squares 1~5

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Klee's musical serialism in linear composition


Many artists who claimed that they were influenced by Klee's work understood only symbolical aspect of his painting.
Some modern composers like Boulez and Stockhausen showed interest in Klee's formal technique.
Klee did not express musical feeing but composed structures like a composer.
Though there are many writings about "Klee and music", words cannot explain the syntax of art.
I am going to use visual grammar for showing Klee's syntactic devices.
                                                          Cezanne/Picasso/Klee
Obvious stylish progress can be seen in these three paintings.
In Cezanne's landscape with buildings the linear structure is dominant.
Picasso neglected perspective and natural color, and the space looks like a structure made of cardboard.
Klee made a mosaic of quadrilaterals; all the geometric elements are quantifiable.
I made a network model.
The model neglects the size and angles of the line segments.


                     Klee CastleHill  line network diagram
These illustrations are the equivalent at the network lebel.
Naming the intersection as "dot", each point is expressed as D (N) [N=3, 4, 5: N is the number of line segments].
There are six D (5). ten D (4) and twenty D (3).
Adding the elements of size and angle, the design is made.


Any artwork is classifiable at this level.


A composition with straight line segments needs a new model to explain the syntactic device.
Any line segment can be considered to be a radius with a pair of two circles which centers are the two ends of the line segment.


                                  Klee  Castle Hill  linear scale model
The linear scale model suggests  that the balance is due to three devices;
1) The extension of some line segments pass through the dots.
2) Some circles form pivot structure.
3) Some dots are alined on the horizontal lines and vertical lines of the frame work.


                                  Klee  Castle Hill  linear scale diagram
Placing one end of each line segment on the center of concentric diagram, we can have horizontal line segments to compare.
The diagram also shows that
1)  there are twenty different size.
2)  the number of the line segments of the same size.


                                  Klee  Castle Hill  Colored line model
In this painting the size of the line segments are important.
The colored line model confirmes that the effect is based on the schematic design.
There are several regular patterns like:
1) a chain of three same sized line segments: the shortest pink ones and vermilion ones.
2) a chain of two same sized line segments: lightest pink, vermilion, yellow, yellow ocher.
3) three light blue ones are attached at a point.
They are fragment of decorative pattern.
Decorative art is not different from painting; the difference is a degree of regularity.


This model can be constructed with colored straw: cutting straws in size and connecting them with strings.
In such a model the angles and the positions are changeable but harmony remains the same.




Now we know that Klee used serial technique in 1929.
This is almost the same time when Schoenberg invented twelve tone music.
It does not mean that there were any relation between Klee and Shoenberg.
Both music and art are based on innate universal grammar.
Plato said " I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning."
My assumption is that the ability for sight precedes ability for hearing.
To understand any design we must have pattern-recognition ability beforehand.
The degree of sensing outside phenomenon is not analogue but digital.
Artist's expression  therefore becomes digital.
Digitaly expressed sounds and shapes form a scale.




After knowing that artwork is made according to the grammar, it is obvious that we cannot establish art theory without examining  the syntactic level of artwork.
The critics in the last century are like people arguing about classical music without reading the musical scores.























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