Featured on PDR in the essay Of Angel and Puppet: Klee, Rilke, and the Test of Innocence

Built for his son from the scraps of daily life — matchboxes, beef bones, nutshells, and plaster — Paul Klee’s hand puppets harbour ghosts of human feelings, fragile communications from a world most adults have left behind. Kenneth Gross compares these enchanted objects to angelic figures, in Klee’s artworks and the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, helping us dance as well as wrestle with their visions of innocence.

Other works by the artist in the archive…

The Ghost of a Scarecrow, Electrical Spook, and Mr Death

Artist

Date

ca. 1921–25


Underlying Rights

Public Domain Worldwide

Digital Rights

Attribution-ShareAlike


Image Size

2242 x 1342

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