Seated Woman

Seated Woman is a common topic for artists of all manner of different styles, here is Paul Klee's take on it

Paul Klee's, Seated Woman, takes is an expressionist piece that takes its cues from the artists of yesterday, including Norris Embry and Marsden Hartley.

It is a stark piece that focuses on the expressionist representation of a single subject, the seated woman.

The piece itself draws the viewers eye to the focal point of the seated woman by placing her in stark white on a muted, ochre background.

The rough style and raw state of the canvas adds a texture to the painting that flows through the piece as a whole. The woman herself is partially obscured by awkward strokes that lie behind her on the canvas and the juxtaposition of the pure white face with the scratched strokes that lies beneath provides depth to a haunting image.

As a Swiss-German, Paul Klee comes from a lineage of great impressionist painters that stretches back to the pre-first world war avant-garde and he carries that style with him through his numerous and storied pieces.

Seated woman is probably one of the more traditional pieces created by Klee but still exhibits an intimacy and elegance that typifies both the genre and the painter.

By focusing less on realism and instead reaching beyond that, into something more meaningful, a simple portrait takes on an emotional bent that is unique to expressionism.

Seated Woman is a continuation of what has been a lifelong study of humanity and it's many facets and shows a knowledge of human nature that is difficult to describe and grasp beyond the world of art.