Even if having already witnessed the modern Zurich and the elegant Lausanne, surely, you still will fall in love with the undisciplined and easy Berne. Unhurriedly drifted at the edge of the world, such a small city still keeps its Medieval appearance while the Bernese with the characteristics of Bears still wore the same expressions as they used to do. Berne will make the roaring housing prices, the shifting stock index out of your mind, not to mention devoting yourself into your job or for your boss’s sake. Berne makes you feel alive and think about the meaning of your life. The Bernese is used to live in the past while they also love modern arts. That day, the red streetcar takes us away from the relatively prosperious downtown to a big building with three waved parts connected together in an open country. Here is what the Bernese is all proud of – Paul Klee art gallery.
Depression with no pain
The guide tells us that there is a key to the analysis and understanding of Klee’s works. If you can understand that this artist has relentlessly sought after the origin of life in his paintings through the use of abstract lines and colors to express philosophic propositionsn, it will be easy for you to figure out the implied meanings behind these lines and colors.
At first, expressionism headed by Goya, Enso and Kubin has a great influence on Klee and then the works of Van Gogh, Matisse and Cezanne also give him many enlightment. In German, Klee competes with Color master Robert Droney, August Macke, Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky as well as other artists. His traveling experience in Tunisia also blends a special color meaning inot Klee’s works.
In the exhibtion room on the second floor exhibite Klee’s paintings in various periods. Because of his personal experiences, a sort of oppression can be traced in his paintings, but it is surprising that you may feel that it is not totally pain but also something fantastic and wonderful involved in such an oppression. For instance, although there is a limpid tear on the left side of that portrait painting in praise of the mother who endows people with life, a kind of generosity, the same with the eternal smile of Buddha, can be felt from her acceptance with the suffering from birth-giving. It is often the case that something exotic appears in his paintings, such as something that looks at neither like a dog nor a horse, creatures with an innocent expression, blue-face girl with an opened snout of the crocodile. His own answer to these is that painters had painted in imitation of that power which creates the whole world, the same as the children imitate us when playing game.
Alexander Klee, Klee’s grandson and inheritor, is determined to build up an art museum for his grandfather. He is not only a painter, the same as his grandfather, but also a photographer. He contributes Klee’s part works to the city government of Berne and a private sponsor offers a piece of a land and construction fund. Besides, they also have received many funds from some individuals and fundations. The italian architect Renzo Piano is responsible for the design and construction of the whole center.
Built for this “contemporary art master of avant-garde “, this art museum has assumed well-marked features of avant-garde architecture. In appearance, this building stands in the center of the road as if a connecting plant. The whole museum is connected with three huge waved ceilings and made out of metal strips in streamlined appearance. The interior decoration is dominated by natural wood while the interior wooden floor is boarded into the arc shape, which is perfectly matched with form of the road. The main building is totally situated in the slope, which is well integrated with the green slope.
An invisible person
When still alive, Paul Klee once said that he himself was an invisible person. He was born in a village in Berne on December 18th, 1879. His father was a music teacher of Bavaria descent while his mother was from Berne. After having hesitated for a while between music and paintings, he still devoted himself into paintings. In 1933, he was forced to leave German for Switzerland until his death. Although both disappointed and tortured by sickness, he still held a retrospective show between Berne and Basel, which has made a huge splash. As far as the whole painting history has been concerned, there is no other influential painter who keeps himself far away from Nabi faction, Fauvism and Cubism movement, and with nothing to do with painting school in Paris.
His lifespan has been spent in the process of being confirmed firstly, and then being denied, but finally being confirmed again, which is no longer important for him anyhow. When the Nazi rampaged about, he was shunted aside. He also suffered from agonies of Scleroderma in his last years. This German who was born in Switherland and hadn’t taken his Swiss citizenship when he was alive, was regarded as a god after his death. However, there is one thing worth of our comfort, namely, his soul, the combination of agonies and happiness, has become immortal and peaceful at this waved art museum.
