Sinbad The Sailor - Canvas Print

Paul Klee, the great colorist and abstract painter of the early twentieth-century, painted his “Sinbad the Sailor” in 1923. Originally intended to illustrate his comic opera ‘The Seafarer’, the source material was taken from a tale from the ‘1001 Arabian Nights’ in which the indefatigable sailor is urged to battle sea monsters. Fascinated by the stark energy of children’s book illustrations, Klee took his inspiration from a completely different source than many of his contemporaries. At a time when many took inspiration from the ongoing upheavals of social revolution, or industrial and scientific progress, the artistic avant-garde often engaged only in formal abstraction, forgetting to touch and connect with the community through art. Klee, however, never forgot the powerful dialectic of human feelings: life and death, the sacred and the profane, happiness and sadness, joy and irony, and by combining and nuancing these elements, Klee achieved a remarkable sense of mystery and depth. Just two years after painting “Sinbad the Sailor” Klee was called to teach at the iconic Bauhaus school. This gave Klee an opportunity for him to clarify his extensive theoretical views and develop a pedagogy of art, that was unlike anything seen before. Yet this theoretical rigor did not prevent his fantastic and poetic verve emerging in his child-like works of dramatic energy and intensity. His works have since both become icons of revolutionary modernism, and been used in kindergartens across the world, showing young children their first glimpse of fine art.

Paul Klee, the great colorist and abstract painter of the early twentieth-century, painted his “Sinbad the Sailor” in 1923. Originally intended to illustrate his comic opera ‘The Seafarer’, the source material was taken from a tale from the ‘1001 Arabian Nights’ in which the indefatigable sailor is urged to battle sea monsters. Fascinated by the stark energy of children’s book illustrations, Klee took his inspiration from a completely different source than many of his contemporaries. At a time when many took inspiration from the ongoing upheavals of social revolution, or industrial and scientific progress, the artistic avant-garde often engaged only in formal abstraction, forgetting to touch and connect with the community through art. Klee, however, never forgot the powerful dialectic of human feelings: life and death, the sacred and the profane, happiness and sadness, joy and irony, and by combining and nuancing these elements, Klee achieved a remarkable sense of mystery and depth. Just two years after painting “Sinbad the Sailor” Klee was called to teach at the iconic Bauhaus school. This gave Klee an opportunity for him to clarify his extensive theoretical views and develop a pedagogy of art, that was unlike anything seen before. Yet this theoretical rigor did not prevent his fantastic and poetic verve emerging in his child-like works of dramatic energy and intensity. His works have since both become icons of revolutionary modernism, and been used in kindergartens across the world, showing young children their first glimpse of fine art.