Paul Klee's Pictorial Writing

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by K. Porter Aichele

Cambridge University Press

Due/Published October 2002, 272 pages, cloth

ISBN 0521812356

This study examines the function and meaning of linguistic symbols in Klee's work. Using the artist's diaries, letters, lecture notes and visual allusions, K. Porter Aichele shows how these sources provide the framework for fresh interpretations of works ranging from letter forms in pictorial settings to visual texts. Klee's familiar line drawings are revealed as a radical reinterpretation of the ul pictora poesis tradition, through which the artist questioned whether there is a substantive difference between writing and drawing.

Contents

1. The rhetoric of visual narrative; 2. Ut pictura poesis revisited; 3. Other models of word/image interaction; 4. Abstract things such as letters 5. A kind of pictorial writingâ.