The journey to Tunisia, 1914

The Tunisian journey is surely one of the most popular chapters in art history. When Paul Klee and his fellow painters August Macke and Louis Moilliet left for Tunisia in April 1914, a cornucopia of impressions awaited them: Tunis, St. Germain, Hammamet, Kairouan, and the people, architecture and scenery of the country inspired the three artists to produce a multitude of watercolors and drawings. They depart from the anecdotal Orientalism of the nineteenth century, abstracting their motifs and transforming them into ornamental shapes and crystalline structures. Their surprising, innovative images are a highlight of early Modernism. Klee went the farthest. For him, color became the most important creative tool; he dissolved the object in planes of color, and the visual construct became a pattern that he covered in arabesques and symbols. This profound publication follows in the footsteps of our extremely successful book on the Tunisian journey (1982), a milestone in the history of our publishing company.(German edition ISBN 978-3-7757-3762-3, French edition ISBN 978-3-7757-3761-6) Exhibition schedule: Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, March 15–June 22, 2014