Paul Klee: My Hand Has Become the Obedient Instrument of a Remote Will.

by Stephen Parker, Ph.D (Article Selection

My muse,Iona Miller, who is not one powerful guiding personality, but several, at least she wears several evo-

provocative costumes

which, like a pacifier, keeps me fixed, focused and hinged at the computer key board, sent me a quote from Paul Klee.(see above).Check her out. She is sure to appear like one of the above. Now, I must admit the work of Klee

has always left me with a feeling of helplessness in that it seemed incapable of keeping company with the

grand masters such as Rubens, Rembrandt and Titian.

Titians Doge Gritti

Even after one accepts the motivational differences between why. The why Titian painted and the why Klee painted, these may be two very different sources. Titian had a wealthy and very ego-centric audience which believed it important to appear important and one can still unashamedly

admire th e knowledge and superb technical accomplishment of Titian. Klee, in his comparably naive technical level, for his part, is rather awesomely bewildering in where he secures his inspirations or, rather, as he puts it, his orders, as he indicated in the quotation. As for Titian we have no doubt as to the source of the orders. The Doges of Venice were very powerful figures and adept at securing the funds required for administering social conduct in an ostentatiously wealthy community where, at one

time, it had been found necessary to limit the number of gold tissues a lady may expose in public, but such modesty did not prevent them from acquiring the wealth of another Christian city under siege...hence the four horses in the facade

of St. Marks.

It may be reasonable to assume that Klee did not possess the ability to match Titians technical accomplishment, and probably Titian would have been psychologically incapable of allowing himself to imagine what Klee took evident delight in doing.

Such differences rather focus on the question as to how one might go about determining the sources and natures of creativity in the arts I see very little difference in the technical level of placing pigment on canvas or paper between Klee and Lichtenstein but I do detect a world of

difference in the probable motivations of the two artists. Lichtenstein actually seems to have more in common with Giotto in his Sunday morning newspaper comic strip approach...which is, in Lichtenstein, a crude . humourless (despite his probable intention) and rather vulgar attempt to raise the level of popular significance of that mischievous fraud. One playful supporter of Lichtensteins creative originality concentrated on the minute aberration he detected in Lichtensteins rendition of a brush stroke...that is, someone elses brush stroke which Lichtenstein had

intended to copy. Chapel

Giottos Arena

It may be possible for Lichtensteins work to be considered a sarcastic comment on the perception of the 20th century American public. It is sad a second Mme

de Stael had not developed somewhere to make the appropriately insightful comments. An elaboration of the opening statement by Klee follows: In Jungian metaphor sunken treasure and buried diamonds or precious stones of the wise are submerged in our psyches, waiting to be drawn up to consciousness. Retrieval of these lost or hidden treasures means tapping

the wisdom of the collective unconscious and its primordial images.

Well, That is certainly a worthy hypothesis, but, as well, somewhat difficult to verify

This illumination from a Medieval manuscript and this illustration of a sea monster are earlier examples of mans concern for the mysteries of the deep which, in Jungs thought are parallels for deep psychological

apprehensions.

Some commentators have indicated that Max Beckmann, as well, gives expression to ancient concerns still permeating some social groups.

MAX BECKMAN TRYPTYCK The Departure This statement resonates with me as most of Jung do, in great part because it echoes my experiences and understandings in the way in which I go about bringing a form into being...whether a painting or sculpture or document.

Klee is by far, more inventive, or at least equally, as rich in deep water story telling than

as we can see in Jules Vernes Twenty-thousand leagues beneath the Sea or vivid illustrations from the medieval period, or the graphic references by the German Max Beckmann. visually as amazingly rich in the nearly other worldly revelations available closer to shore such as the multitudinous forms of a miniscule sea worm (nudibrank) the erstwhile English teacher turned marine-biologist,

Patty Jo Hoff

of The University of

Guam repeatedly informs us of the critters she finds in Biley Bay and elsewhere. Evidently she expresses her creative urges by finding these extraordinary creatures

The quotation which opens this document is, as I have increasingly found, to be accurately descriptive of what I have experienced in the creative process. It certainly is a force beyond the usual self which takes control and employs us, as vehicles for its self-expression, or we have, for some brief period, dissolved barriers to perception.

If it is this second possibility it then, by retrospection, gives us some idea of the strength of social convention in determining events The other possibility is, In its way, somewhat humiliating to realise that some of our most insightful and creative works are the result of something else taking over. Or, It may. on the other hand, simply be that the person has successfully reached deeper and heretofore un reached levels of the psyche and this unfamiliar territory encourages an explanation referencing unknown , occult, powers. O.K. so now we know what a genius is and how it functions. wow! The world sure is a surprising place

Wow! How did I get here?....and where is here? Am I going to be allowed to self-actualize?.....or am I destined to be what others tell me I am?

Someone told of this experience of the power of spiritual insight some 2.000 years ago, or so Ive, in my turn, been told.

SOME OTHE POSSIBLE EXAMPLES BELOW

I do not know the name of the photographer of the top part of a Passion Flower with a busy bee beneath. but I appreciate his adventurous insight

And then I had the distinct pleasure of getting to know the work by Iris Brendel of Vienna

And below, some of mine, which may approach levels of creativeness

Stormy Seas of Saturn by Paul Henrickson

Dispersal of Seed by Paul Henrickson

Reef by Paul Henrickson, Dr.P.J.Hoff collection

Soul of a Christian eaten by Lions by Paul Henrickson , Reverend Benjamin Larzelere III

collection The Song of a Bird by Paul Henrickson E. Paul Torrance collection

Paul Henrickson photo of a Chinese pheasant

Puzzle design by Paul Henrickson pointing out a path to an alternative way if thinking. Contact .likiak.paul @ gmail.com

for more information on the puzzels.

Dr

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