Nordic Fairy Tale

Klee is remembered for warm southern light, so a Nordic fairy tale is a deliberate turn the other way. On a small sheet, about the size of a page, he sketches a cold folktale world in pen and thin colour: pointed forms that read as fir trees or steep roofs, a few figures or creatures among them, everything a little stiff and spellbound, the way northern tales tend to be. He loved the fairy tale as a form because it let him draw impossible things plainly, without having to explain them. The pen lines carry most of the story here, with the colour laid on in quiet washes behind them.