Sein Schatten
This conversation is connected to Sein Schatten.
Klee made Sein Schatten — "His Shadow" — in 1934, the year after he fled Germany for Switzerland. A large gray-blue silhouette of an animal, possibly a goat or dog, sits against a flat red ground dotted with darker red marks. The form is painted in a single flat wash, its edges rough and organic, with a smaller version of the same animal appearing at the upper left like a thought or an echo. Klee inscribed the title, date, and catalogue number at the bottom. The painting is stripped down to almost nothing — two shapes, two colors, a title. It was made during a year when Klee produced very little, before the extraordinary outpouring of his final period began.