Paul Klee

This adaptation of the human face is divided by colour into rectangles. Flat geometric squares are held within a circle representing a masked face and displaying the multi-coloured costume of a harlequin. A portrait of the artist performer Senecio, it can be seen as a symbol of the shifting relationship between art, illusion and the world of drama. This painting demonstrates Klee's principles of art, in which the graphic elements of line, colour planes and space are set in motion by an energy from the artist's mind. In his imaginative doodlings, he liked, in his own words, to "take a line for a walk" .