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Tree and Architecture--Rhythms

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Move along the rows of round tree tops and the grids of the buildings, and notice how the same shapes return at different sizes, like beats in music.

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Klee painted this small oil on paper in 1920, six years after the war broke up the Blue Rider. That year the Munich dealer Hans Goltz gave him a first retrospective of 362 works, and in October he was called to teach at the Bauhaus. Round tree tops sit above buildings drawn as grids, and the title calls the result rhythms.

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oil on paper · overall: 27.9 x 38.3 cm · National Gallery of Art · The Blue Rider

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Details and source

Museum title
Baum und Architektur--Rhythmen (Tree and Architecture--Rhythms)
Artist
Paul Klee Swiss, 1879 - 1940
Date
1920
Medium
oil on paper
Dimensions
overall: 27.9 x 38.3 cm (11 x 15 1/16 in.)
Credit line
Gift of Benjamin and Lillian Hertzberg
Image license
CC0 1.0 · Public domain
Museum record
National Gallery of Art

Artist’s life 1879–1940

The Blue Rider c. 1911–1914

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Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.

Tree and Architecture--Rhythms · Paul Klee, 1920
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Tree and Architecture--Rhythms, Paul Klee

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