Investigating Art and the Spiritual, Week 9: Video, Paul Klee: The Silence of the Angel

This week the class watched and discussed the DVD, Paul Klee: The Silence of the Angel. We found it to be a well-crafted and illuminating, but not heavy-handed, biopic of this "artist's artist", as one class member called Klee. We recommend it highly. Following are the questions we considered after viewing the film; feel free to use them to establish some lines of thinking if you decide to rent the film (it is available through Netflix).

11/23/09
Discussion Questions on Paul Klee: The Silence of the Angel


1. Do you find the connection between Klee’s art and music to be convincing and meaningful? Does this connection inform about, or confirm for us anything about the Klee pieces in the Foundation?

2. What about the documentary do you think speaks most clearly about the spiritual in Klee’s art?

3. What spoke most clearly about timelessness (our investigation through Klee’s work) in the documentary?

4. A phrase in the documentary refers to Klee’s finding the “prehistory of the visible”. What do you think this means?

5. What does the documentary, if anything, get wrong, in your opinion?

6. It is mentioned that Klee’s aim was not to represent nature, but to find its essence. Do you think this is

accurate?