Paul Klee - After the Drawing, 1919

At the time around 1919, after his experiences in the 1st World War and his first successes in the art market, Paul Klee took up the theme of personal awareness and self-reflection in numerous self-portraits. The best known of these is the pencil drawing «Absorbtion». Klee’s theme here was less the reflection on the role of the artist and more a self depiction of an inwardly looking meditator. The artist no longer looks outwards but looks within himself. The eyes are tight shut, the ears are missing. No external disturbances and influences can distract him from his meditation. This drawing he also transformed into a lithograph, printing it in large numbers. The prints were partly coloured by hand. In 1919 Paul Klee had the lithographic version of «Absorbtion» published in the Munich Folios for Poetry and Graphics and thus presented himself as an ascetic mystic. This image was imposed upon himself and stated by him in the preface of his first biography «At this moment I am not tangible …».