Ascent of a Little Town

Klee built this one to be read upward. The format is tall and narrow, and a small town climbs it in a mosaic of interlocking blocks, the earthy reds and browns near the bottom giving way to cooler, paler tones as the eye rises, so the whole place seems to be scrambling up a slope. There are no streets or people, just tiles of colour packed edge to edge like a loose wall of stones. Klee had seen plenty of hill towns in Italy and North Africa, where houses stack up a hillside until the town and the hill blur together. Here the climb is the whole subject, spelled out in the direction of the colours.