Young Lady's Adventure

Young Lady's Adventure is an impressionistic painting rendered in watercolour by Paul Klee

It dates to 1922 when it was created, and the original painting is allegedly located in London, where it was brought to after its purchase in 1946. As Paul Klee passed away in 1946, it was not sold by its original painter.

The painting shows the sort of expressionism that is common to Paul Klee's work. It is similar on the surface to Klee's other work, Three Houses and a Bridge, in that it depicts a situation that is stated plainly by its title.

Where Three Houses and a Bridge was more a cubist work, however, Young Lady's Adventure has a more impressionistic bent: although it is reasonably clear to any viewer that a young lady is depicted in the painting, her exact nature and the painting's exact significance have seen multiple popular interpretations.

Will Grohmann, a contemporary German art critic, stated that the painting depicted a fashionable young lady, who while possessed of striking elegance was helpless against "the oppressive spirits". Certainly, the young lady does appear somewhat pained on first observation.

Other critics proposed that the painting has an erotic touch to it, with the arrow shapes shown near and around the young lady serving as phallic imagery. This, too, seems a reasonable interpretation when so many contemporary works depicting women were of this nature.

All interpretations of Young Lady's Adventure seem equally valid.

Its interpretation as an erotic piece is not entirely common to Paul Klee's other works, though, while the idea that the young lady was more generally shackled in spirit matches the themes of wit and childish perspective that can be seen throughout the greater body of Klee's works.