Death and Fire
{{Short description|Painting by Paul Klee}}
{{Infobox artwork
| title = Death and Fire
| image_file = Death and Fire (1940) - Paul Klee (Zentrum Paul Klee).jpg
| image_upright = 1.3
| type = Oil and coloured paste on burlap{{cite web |title=Death and Fire |url=http://www.emuseum.zpk.org/eMuseumPlus?service=direct/1/ResultListView/result.t1.collection_list.$TspTitleImageLink.link&sp=10&sp=Scollection&sp=SfilterDefinition&sp=0&sp=0&sp=1&sp=SdetailList&sp=60&sp=Sdetail&sp=0&sp=F&sp=T&sp=74 |website=Zentrum Paul Klee Collection |accessdate=17 February 2020}}
| artist = Paul Klee
| year = 1940
| height_metric = 43
| width_metric = 43
| museum = Zentrum Paul Klee
| city = Bern
}}
Death and Fire, known in German as Tod und Feuer, is an expressionist painting by Paul Klee, from 1940. It is on display at Zentrum Paul Klee, in Bern.
Meaning and History
Death and Fire was one of Klee's last paintings, shortly before his death on June 29, 1940. In 1935 Klee started to suffer from scleroderma, which manifested itself with fatigue, skin rashes, difficulty in swallowing, shortness of breath and pain in the joints of his hands.{{cite journal| journal=Current Opinion in Rheumatology| title=Illness and art: the legacy of Paul Klee| author=Varga, J.| pmid=15577609| volume=16| issue=6|date=November 2004| pages=714–717| doi=10.1097/01.bor.0000144759.30154.84}} His painting during this period tended to be simpler and representative of the suffering he was going through.{{cite journal |doi=10.1258/jrsm.2009.09k079 |journal=Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine |title=The diagnosis of art: Scleroderma in Paul Klee – and Rembrandt's scholar? |last1=Aronson |first1=Jeffrey |first2=Manoj |last2=Ramachandran |date=2010-02-01 |volume=103 |issue=2 |pages=70–71|pmc=2813781 |pmid=22141181}} "Tod", the German word for death, is a common motif throughout this painting. It can be seen most distinctly in the features of the face, though the "d" and "t" are rotated. The word can also be seen in the figure's raised arm as the "T", the yellow orb as the "O", and the figure's head (or torso) as the "D".
Hieroglyphics
The painting also represents hieroglyphics, an interest of Klee's during this time,{{cite web| title=Death and Fire, 1940 by Paul Klee| publisher=Paul Klee.net| accessdate=2014-05-16| url=http://www.paulklee.net/death-and-fire.jsp}} which can also be seen in many of his other late 1930s paintings, such as Insula dulcamara (1938) and Heroic Roses (1938).
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{commons category-inline|Death and Fire by Paul Klee}}
{{Paul Klee}}
{{Death and mortality in art}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Death and Fire}}
Category:Paintings in the Zentrum Paul Klee
Category:Paintings by Paul Klee