Layout 1 ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE NO. 5 / SPRING 2018 ANGER / KLEE AND JAPAN 104 MEETING ON A BRIDGE: AN APPROACH TO KLEE AND JAPAN JENNY ANGER Ein japanischer Kunstsammler reiste zum Schosshaldenfriedhof in Bern, wo Paul Klee begraben ist. Der Sammler brachte etwas mit: Eine mit grosser Sorgfalt geschriebene Kalligrafie des buddhistischen Herz Sutra (jap. Hannya shingyō). Er wollte es dort mit Klee in dieser und der jenseitigen Welt ver- eint sehen. Heimlich begrub er den geliebten Text direkt neben Klees Grab. Diese Anekdote zeigt die aussergewöhnliche Leidenschaft, die viele Japaner für Klee und seine Kunst empfinden. Der Kunsthistoriker Osamu Okuda hat hierzu folgende These aufgestellt: »Inmitten eines rasant voranschreitenden Modernisierungsprozesses hat Japan seine traditionellen ästhetischen Werte in der Kunst von Klee wieder erkannt, zu der es zu- rückgegriffen hat, um seine kulturelle Iden- tität zu bewahren.« Das Essay ist Bestandteil eines grösseren Projekts, welches der Frage nachgeht, weshalb viele Japaner glauben, in Klees Kunst ihre eigene Ästhetik wieder zu erkennen. SUMMARY A Japanese art collector traveled to Schosshalden, near Bern, Switzer- land, where Paul Klee is buried. The collector brought something with him: he had hand written the Buddhist Heart Sutra (Hanya Shinkyo) with great care. He wanted it there with Klee in this world and the next: he se- cretly buried the beloved text right next to Klee’s grave.1 This anecdote demonstrates the extraordinary passion that many Japan- ese feel for Klee and his art.2 As Osamu Okuda has theorized, »In the midst of a rap- idly progressing modernization process, Japan recognized its traditional aesthetic val- ues again in the Klee’s art, to which it reached back, in order to preserve its cultural identity.«3 Precisely what in Klee’s art allows many Japanese to see their own aesthetics remains to be articulated, and this essay rep- resents a contribution to that larger project. The tale of the buried Heart Sutra conveys something of the nature of the deeply empa- thetic response that is our subject. The Heart Sutra is about wholeness and emptiness all at once. »Form does not differ from empti- ness, emptiness does not differ from form,« the sutra maintains. There are »no ignorance and also no extinction of it, and so forth until no old age and death and also no extinction of them.« Opposites are both held and dis- solved; life both is and is not of this time, of this earth. The sutra speaks of immanence, transcendence, and ultimate contingency. The collector may have been inspired by Klee’s art, his gravestone, or both. Carved into Klee’s headstone are his words: »In this world I cannot be understood. For I live as much with the dead as with the unborn. A lit- tle closer to the heart of creation than usual, and for a long time still not close enough.« There are expansion and collapse of time and space in these words. At the memorial, it is as if Klee were speaking from beyond the grave, from a place where mortals cannot reach him, and magically close to the origin of all. Scholars know, however, that Klee wrote the words in 1920, twenty years before his death, specifically for publication, where ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE.ORG NO. 5 / SPRING 2018 105ANGER / KLEE AND JAPAN Fig. 1 Harue Koga Copy of P. Klee's "Kairuan"(1914), The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo © MOMAT/DNPartcom Fig. 2 Paul Klee Kairuan, 1914,38, from reproduction in Leopold Zahn, Paul Klee: Leben / Werk / Geist, 1920 the lines are dubiously attributed to his diary.4 At the time, the words were part of the artist’s self-fashioning, a projection for the public of how he felt he was or how he wanted to be perceived; »for a long time still not close enough« may even reveal frustration with the difficulty in transcending his immanent world. Reading the text at the gravesite, visi- tors sense both the absence of that once mortal, fallible man and the presence of his great spirit, uncannily speaking to us from then, there, here, and now. These lines by Klee have been associated with Eastern religion since their appearance in Leopold Zahn’s monograph, Paul Klee: Leben, Werk, Geist, in 1920. Zahn precedes Klee’s quotation with an epigraph from Chi- nese philosopher Zhuangzi, who attests to the select number of geniuses who can attain the Tao and transcend life and death.5 The implication is clearly that Klee is one of them. In Hermann von Wedderkop’s book on Klee, also from 1920, he claims that the artist’s painting itself invokes the Tao, and he sug- gests that Klee’s content appears directly in his form.6 Wilhelm Hausenstein published the third book on Klee in 1921, and there Klee is said to connect with the Buddha: »he painted[…]with a secret instinct, honoring the Buddha, who, though thousands of miles away, lived in the stillness of his paintings.« Klee’s abstract painting is expressive, Hausenstein explains, of a deep understand- ing of Buddhist emptiness.7 One might be critical of these writers’ ahis- toricism. After all, Zahn, Wedderkop, and Hausenstein associate Far Eastern spiritual- ity with Klee at the same time that they locate his transformation into a great painter in Tunisia in 1914—a decidedly more Islamic lo- cale (at least Hausenstein notes that the Buddha was thousands of miles away!).8 However, even though Klee’s experience with Taoism and Buddhism was limited, there seems to be something authentic about the experience of Klee’s art that these references convey.9 In any case, the allusion to Eastern religion did not ring false for Nakata Sadanosuke, a remarkably early Japanese collector of Klee who published a Japanese translation of Wedderkop’s text already in 1924.10 And painter Koga Harue, a devout Buddhist, studiously copied Klee’s watercol- ors in the 1920s while also painting Bod- hisattvas. The source for this copy (FIG.1) was likely the reproduction of Klee’s Kairuan (1914,38, cat. no. 1147, FIG. 2) in Zahn’s book. Koga’s devotion is evidenced by his having had to imagine the tonal variations from the black and white plate.11 Klee’s actual painting is long missing, so we are grateful for Koga’s efforts, without which it would be far harder to conjure the colorful original. How could Klee, a non-Buddhist, make »Buddhist« art? Hausenstein begins his nar- rative with a fictional account that is telling, I believe. In it, a monk-like man, »like a worker or wise man from the Orient,« tries to cross the bridge that will dissolve all opposites, this world and that. Part way across, the man plays his violin, and then he writes and draws. Playing, writing, and drawing, it is said, are all the same.12 The artists, then, whatever his medium, is positioned on the bridge between opposites, be they form and emptiness, content and form, representation and abstraction, immanence and transcen- dence. In the twentieth century, these pairs ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE.ORG NO. 5 / SPRING 2018 106ANGER / KLEE AND JAPAN were often the basis for comparison of West- ern and Eastern painting, and Klee figured conspicuously in that philosophical debate. As Otto Pöggeler has shown, Shinichi Hisamatsu, later the author of Zen and the Fine Arts (1971), and philosopher Martin Hei- degger took part in the colloquium »Art and Thought« in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, in 1958.13 Their discussion warrants our at- tention in some detail. According to Pöggeler, Hisamatsu claimed that by way of Gei-do (Japanese art untouched by occidental aes- thetics), »people break in to [or access] the origin, and so deeply connect with the truth of life.« Pöggeler summarizes Hisamatsu’s position thus: »Independence from the need to make form, that is, nothingness, allows for an opening to the origin, to creation.«14 Then Heidegger entered the discussion, asserting that »in European art, the artwork brings the thing (Gebilde) into a picture, it makes it visi- ble, whereas in East Asian art, representation is an obstacle [Hindernis], and the picture is an obstruction [Hinderung].« Hisamatsu re- joined Heidegger with the remark that »after breaking into the origin [as he had character- ized the Gei-do], the making visible [which Heidegger had called European] can become an appearance of original truth.« The formu- lation neatly allows for both Eastern and Western art to reveal truth. Heidegger then refined his position, as Pöggeler reports, to say that writing or drawing could be that which frees one from obstruction (Ent-hin- derung). Therefore, art is not the truth, nor is it an obstacle to truth, but, rather, it can break down obstacles to truth; it can, in Hei- degger’s words, be the »occasion for the movement of the self to the origin.«15 At this juncture, another participant, Siegfried Bröse, turned the discussion to the more specific example of modern Western art. He suggested that traditional Western art depends on the symbol, but that modern Western art is closer to Zen because it does not. For this reason, Bröse continued, mod- ern artists paint abstractly. He interrupted his analysis with an exception, however: Klee, he maintained, is still an »objective case,« and therefor is »still a symbolic painter.«16 Heidegger immediately objected—not to this characterization of Klee, which allows for the representational elements within Klee’s abstraction, but to the characterization of modern Western art and Zen as occluding the symbolic. Pöggeler reports that Heideg- ger asked what sort of world it would be if the symbolic disappeared altogether.17 In other words, Heidegger remained committed to trying to access original truth—much as Klee claims to on his epitaph—but the philosopher revised his earlier assessment of Eastern art as essentially empty to account for Eastern or Western art’s abstraction or representa- tion as potentially leading to the revelation of original truth. Heidegger’s quick defense of the symbolic at the moment Klee was named suggests his own appreciation for the artist, whose work is rarely completely abstract. In- deed, Heidegger’s description of art’s making visible echoes Klee’s own words: »Art does not reproduce the visible but rather renders visible.«18 Even more decisively, when Hei- degger and Hisamatsu flipped through a book of Klee’s watercolors after the collo- quium, Heidegger purportedly shared his be- lief that »Klee is a more important painter than Picasso.« The Zen art expert responded, in reference to one particular Klee, that »it has something of Japanese calligraphy in it.« Heidegger concurred.19 Klee’s painting as Japanese calligraphy, Klee’s painting as Buddhist: the Far Eastern framework is consistent, but careful readers will have noticed that the descriptions of Klee’s art within this framework are not. Hausenstein claimed that Klee’s painting is abstract and empty like Buddhist emptiness. Bröse, however, seconded by Heidegger, drew attention to the residually symbolic as- pect of Klee’s work.20 Finally, Hisamatsu noted something in Klee that is not painting at all, but writing. Is there a way to respect the truth of these reputable people’s repre- sentations of their experiences and, at the same time, account for their apparent con- tradictions? I believe there is, if we return to Hausenstein’s parable of the artist’s crossing the bridge. Recall that crossing the river ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE.ORG NO. 5 / SPRING 2018 107ANGER / KLEE AND JAPAN promised to collapse opposites, representa- tion and abstraction, immanence and tran- scendence. The artist is figured on the bridge; he plays his violin (as Klee, too, played the violin); it does not matter what sort of art he makes, but he is there to lead us to truth. In Mahayana (including Zen) Buddhism, the Boddhisattava attains enlightenment, but rather than staying in Nirvana he returns to this world to help other sentient beings attain the truth. The practices of Mahayana and Zen Buddhism have differed greatly from place to place and time to time, yet the Zen popular- ized in Japan in the first half of the twentieth century asserted this as a central tenet.21 Is that not the artist on the bridge? Is that not Klee, abstracting here, representing there, painting and writing and making music, on his way to the beyond yet tarrying in this world to meet us on the bridge and show us the truth? Is that not how a non-Buddhist artist made »Buddhist« art? In Pöggeler’s analysis of Hisamatsu and Heidegger’s meeting, he suggests that the Bodhisattva’s return from Nirvana legiti- mates or even necessitates a return to the everyday in Japanese art.22 He contrasts the Gothic cathedral, with its glorious, stained- glass light signifying the beyond, and the Japanese tearoom, within which light passes quietly through low paper windows, we sit on mats, handle ceramic teacups, and gaze upon the flower vase or hanging scroll (kake- mono) in the alcove (tokonoma). In the former, the symbol looms large and majestic. In the latter, the everyday, the earthly gain our di- rect attention—as a means of attaining en- lightenment. Pöggeler’s analysis perpetuates an ahistorical opposition between Western and Eastern art, but his emphasis on the im- portance of direct, immanent experience is wholly consistent with the theorization of Japanese Zen as disseminated by scholars such as Hisamatsu. Readers unfamiliar with the tea ceremony may protest that these musings take us far from any actual works by Klee, which the re- sponsible art-historical text should address. The surprise—for tea ceremony novices—is that we need not leave this traditional Japan- ese practice in order to see a real Klee. In fact, Yoshitomo Kajikawa, the director of the Kahitsukan, Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art, might contend that we see it best there. Kajikawa’s meticulously designed museum devotes one floor to traditional Japanese scrolls by early 20th-century painter Kagaku Murakami, one to abstract oils by mid-20th- century artist Kaoru Yamaguchi, and one to the traditional ceramics of the renowned 20th-century artist Kitaoji Rosanjin. The top floor is reserved for a garden opening onto his teahouse. The museum’s website in- cludes an exquisitely composed photograph of the interior of the tearoom, viewed through the graceful branches of a tree in the garden (FIG. 3).23 The door is aligned such that we can just see the traditional kakemono in the tokonoma. But what was hanging in the al- cove, in this most carefully designed Japan- ese setting, when I visited the Kahitsukan myself? A work by Paul Klee, Before the Long Nose (1926,217 [V7], cat. no. 4175, FIG. 4). I was astonished, having expected to see a Japanese scroll.24 Later I would learn of other instances of seamless incorporation of Klee into traditional Japanese aesthetics. For lack of expertise, I leave it to other scholars to determine whether this assimilation is in- tegral to Japanese aesthetics, whether Jape- Fig. 3 View of Light Garden with Kagaku Murakami, Prince Edward Chan that under the tree © Kahitsukan, Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE.ORG NO. 5 / SPRING 2018 108ANGER / KLEE AND JAPAN nese aesthetics is less consistent than often imagined, or how closely these propositions are intertwined. Here my interest is how Klee resonates in this context. Before attending to the Klee in the tokonoma, then, it is instruc- tive to consider some other examples. Per- haps the most well known is Yasunari Kawabata’s novel Koto (1962), translated into English as The Old Capital. In the book, Kawa- bata wrestles with the demise of old culture in Japan following World War II. The story un- folds amidst the obi and kimono workshops, Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples, festivals, and gardens of Kyoto, Japan’s cultural capital for hundreds of years. The focus of consider- able attention in this novel about traditional Japanese culture is nevertheless Paul Klee. Klee makes his first appearance when the weary kimono wholesaler, Sada Takichiro, is given a book of modern paintings by his aes- thetically sensitive daughter, Chieko, in hopes of inspiring him.25 Takichiro does come up with a new design, but when he takes it to the obi weaver, Sosuke Otomo, he is asked, »Klee? Who’s Klee? «He responds: His paintings are gentle, exceptional. You might say they have the quality of a dream, a quality that would speak even to the heart of an old Japanese woman. I studied them over and over until I came up with this pattern. It’s unlike an traditional Japanese design.26 It is an odd characterization in that Klee’s work is figured as at once comprehensible to the old Japanese and yet unrecognizable as Japanese design. Otomo, the character just introduced to Klee’s work, nonetheless re- sponds approvingly: »Hmm, it’s excellent. The color harmony[…]fine. You’ve never done anything so novel before; nevertheless, its’ restrained.« And then: »Elegant in a Japan- ese manner.« Thus a traditional Japanese ar- tisan finds the Klee-inspired work to be novel, yet consistent with Japanese taste. Then, however, Otomo’s son, Hideo, whom we might expect to be less tied to the old ways, responds to the obi negatively. He explains: »This obi is[…]intriguing at first glance but it has none of the harmony of a warm heart.«27 Takichiro, devastated by this response, crum- ples up the design and throws it into a stream. Many readers likely assume that is the end of the obi. Yet Hideo, initially alarmed by the design, is later inspired to weave it from memory for Chieko. When he presents it to her and her father, she responds with delight. Recognizing the source, she cries: »Oh, Fa- ther, this was inspired by the Klee book[…]. It’s wonderful.« Takichiro, now unsure what to think of the obi he had designed, asks, »Chieko, does this obi have harmony?[...]of the heart?« Her response: »Harmony?[...] The harmony would depend on the kimono and the person wearing it[…].« Hideo asks Chieko is she will try the obi on, which she does, to their collective joy.28 The tale of the Klee design reveals Kawa- bata’s ambivalence about tradition versus in- novation.29 There is a happy ending, but it consists not in knowing the essential nature of the obi –whether it is properly restrained or too innovative—but rather in understand- Fig. 4 Paul Klee vor der langen Nase, 1926, 217 (V7) Before the Long Nose, oil transfer drawing and watercolour on paper on cardboard, 50 x 39 cm, Kahitsukan, Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art © Kahitsukan, Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE.ORG NO. 5 / SPRING 2018 109ANGER / KLEE AND JAPAN Fig. 5 Paul Klee Alter Klang, 1925, 236 Ancient Harmony, oil on cardboard, 38,1 x 37,8 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel, Vermächtnis Richard Doetsch-Benziger © Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Archiv ing Chieko’s wisdom that harmony is contin- gent: the beauty of this traditional Japanese accessory depends on the grace of its wearer and the appropriateness of the fabric around which it is wrapped. The threesome’s shared pleasure when Chieko tries it on means that Klee has been happily integrated into the cul- ture of the old, yet changing Kyoto.30 That moving fictional account resonates with the experience of a well-known contem- porary artist as well. Fukumi Shimura, a ki- mono maker and weaver in Kyoto who has been named one of Japan’s Living National Treasures, joined other contributors in writ- ing about Klee for a special edition of Asahi Bijutsukan (Art Magazine) in 1995. She writes that Klee’s Ancient Harmony (1925,236 [X6], cat. no. 3917, FIG. 5) evokes the exquisite col- ors and shadows of old Japan, as well as the costumes of dead spirits in Noh theatre.31 For Shimura, then, too, it is unproblematic to see Klee in terms of Japanese aesthetic tradition. In fact, one night the weaver says she in- vented a game: she cut out a small paper frame and moved it across a reproduction of Ancient Harmony. Remarkably, she says, she found that wherever she placed the frame, she found a perfect composition. Then it seemed natural to her to think of her weaving and Klee together, for weaving, she explains, means making lots of color fields, complete in themselves, which harmonize together to create a beautiful, whole composition. How did Klee learn to harmonize so beautifully? Shimura answers with Klee’s answer, which he proffered long ago. She quotes him saying »In this world I cannot be understood[…],« and she concludes that »these are the words of a person who has reached the core of cre- ation.« Apparently she agrees with Hisamatsu and Heidegger on the possibility of art, and she even exceeds Klee’s estima- tion of his own success. Perhaps, then, it is not so unusual to think of Klee alongside tra- ditional Japanese art, either in real life or in fiction. Interestingly, contemporary Japanese artists feel an affinity for Klee and yet also come to describe his art with traditional Japanese metaphors. Architect Toyo Ito, for example, famous for brash buildings such as the Mediatheque in Sendai, admires Klee and compares his work with the Japanese gar- den. In the same edition of Asahi Bijutsukan where Shimura reveals her weaver’s love of Klee, Ito discusses Klee’s drawing Fish in the Torrent (1926,52 [O1], cat. no. 3997, FIG. 6). He finds it provocative because the current and the fish are integrated: the parallel lines and swirls cross and disappear, and the fish look like traces of the movement of the water, as the water reflects the materiality of the fish.32 When I met with the architect in his office, I asked if the contingency he recognized in Klee, of those fish in the torrent, were remi- niscent of any Japanese aesthetic practice.33 He responded with the idea of the Japanese garden, and as he spoke he began to draw examples. He explained that there are many elements: trees, water, stones for walking, a teahouse, a bridge: everything is continuous, and yet one can choose his own path, like walking through trees in a forest. He said then that he hopes to make the practice of ar- chitecture like this, both in the process of its creation and the process of walking through the building. In retrospect, I note that Ito’s ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE.ORG NO. 5 / SPRING 2018 110ANGER / KLEE AND JAPAN quick sketches to represent a course through the garden are distant cousins of Klee’s fish swimming: perhaps together they approach the heart of creation.34 Finally, since Klee was a violinist, it seems fitting to consider one of the many musicians inspired by Klee.35 Takashi Kako wrote a stir- ring collection of twelve piano compositions based on Klee’s paintings for his album Klee (1988)—the cover of which features Ancient Harmony, also the title of one of the compo- sitions. Kako said that at the time he was in- fluenced by Erik Satie and free improvisation, but mostly by the openness of Klee’s paint- ings.36 Asked to elaborate, he replied that many years before he had taken to placing a reproduction of a Vincent van Gogh, a Pablo Picasso, or a Klee behind the keyboard in front of him, and he would improvise »to ex- plain the painting with the music.« Later he thought that this practice was insufficient; he wanted the music not simply to illustrate the painting, but rather to become its own au- tonomous work. Kako found this difficult with Van Gogh and Picasso, however; their works were too imposing. In contrast, »Klee left room for music.« Van Gogh and Picasso, he said, were like novels, but Klee was like a haiku. The brief, ancient form of Japanese po- etry is profound in its suggestion, he contin- ued, in its openness to response. Clearly, gazing at Klees led Kako to his own source of creation; for each work he responded with music. Also, although each of his composi- tions is self-sufficient, he said that when he performs, he does not stand up between the pieces; he is aware of the silence between the musical compositions, and the continuity and sequence of intervals between composi- tions are all-important. His chosen Klees are not completely independent, he concluded, but rather form a »suite« (perhaps like Shimura’s beautifully harmonized combina- tions of color fields). When Kako plays these pieces he imagines himself wandering amidst pictures at an exhibition, much like, it would seem, Ito wanders through his imagi- nary garden of creation. Do they meet on the bridge where opposites emerge and dis- solve? Examinging Kawabata, Shimura, Ito, and Kako, we have seen a wide range of the artists Klee has touched in Japan: some tra- ditional, some modern, and all of them find- ing something Japanese in Klee, be it inspiration for a fictional obi, the colors of tra- ditional Japan, an invitation to explore a Japanese garden, or haiku.37 With this under- standing we can return to our consideration of the Kahitsukan teahouse and begin to ap- proach how Kajikawa, so careful in his own aesthetic deliberations, could hang a Klee as the kakemono in the tokonoma. What should be in a tokonoma? The earliest scrolls to hang in tearooms, especially during the Muromachi period (1392-1573), were, oddly enough, examples of calligraphy of painting executed by the Sung or Yuan priests of China.38 Therefore it is traditional within this aspect of Japanese culture to incorpo- rate foreign treasures. Depicted in the paint- ings were often birds, flowers, or landscapes: natural things from this world. »Since the scroll is an object of admiration,« tea histo- rians Sen’ô Tanaka and Sendô Tanaka write, »it is always mounted thoughtfully.«39 Such thoughtfulness means careful consideration of whether it is calligraphy or painting and whether it is mounted on paper or silk, plain or patterned. Klee’s work, we should note, can be all of these things: foreign (to Japan- Fig. 6 Paul Klee Fische im Wildbach, 1926, 51 Fish in the Torrent, pen on paper on cardboard, 13,2 x 17,5/17,3 cm Privatbesitz © Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Archiv ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE.ORG NO. 5 / SPRING 2018 111ANGER / KLEE AND JAPAN ese), frequently natural in subject, calli- graphic or painterly or a combination of the two, and often mounted on paper or fabric of another color or design. In fact, the Klee I witnessed that day in the Kahitsukan tokonoma is a wonderful example of all of these general characteristics of a kakemono. In Before the Long Nose (FIG. 4), the ink drawing, with its thin, waving lines, is not immediately recognizable. At first sight it might be a Chinese character, or simply an abstract design; only on closer observation does a human bust appear, in profile, with its curiously long nose crossing most of its face and its fingers inexplicably in front of, yet not quite touching, that nose. The paper is mounted on cardboard, and at the bottom of the work one finds the artists’ hand-written title. The ink drawing appears to float in an aqueous haze of the most subtle and delicate peach tones. Klee has achieved this effect with his oil transfer technique, whereby the drawing retains signs of its production; smudges and fingerprints record the transfer process.40 The watercolor haze in which it floats appears to take this hands-on, mate- rial labor off to another, dreamy world, where the enigma of the subject might become clear. »But by far the most important rule for the hanging scroll in the alcove,« the Tanakas write, »is to see that it matches the propor- tions of the alcove itself….«41 The work may be beautiful in itself, they assert, but it will not be pleasing and harmonious unless it fits well in its surroundings—just like Chieko’s obi. The contingency of the work and its im- portance are perhaps best expressed by the 16th-century tea master Sen no Rikyû, whom the Tanakas quote: »The most important tea utensil is the kakemono, because through it the heart of the host and the guest come to- gether.«42 Did Before the Long Nose suit the tokonoma? Through auspicious circum- stances, I was able to ask Kajikawa for his personal opinion.43 He graciously shared tea with me and another visitor. We were in his office, not in the tearoom, but he poured the tea in Rosanjin’s cups, out of which he said he had been drinking for forty years. I asked this immaculately dressed man, attentive to every detail in his museum, how he could hang a Klee in the teahouse. Kajikawa told us that he always displays at least one of his Klees, and he confirmed that he does use them for his tea ceremonies.44 He com- mented that he enjoys recombining works, including Klee’s, and thereby changing the effect of each and overall. He said, echoing Kako, that »Klee’s work whispers with a low and silent voice,« and that a quiet place such as his museum is a »comfortable« one for Klee. It seems clear, then, that Kajikawa believes in the contingency of art and that he includes himself in his aesthetic practice. He told us, for example, that long ago he did not think of Rosanjin’s ceramics as art, but rather as use- ful objects for daily life. However, daily use of the Rosanjins filled him with such joy that he decided that they are, in fact, art. Kajikawa considers his guests just as carefully: he ex- pressed great pleasure that one well-known visitor had come to thirty or more tea work- shops here. My colleague and I felt honored that he took out his beloved Rosanjins to share with us. I felt the honor work upon me. As we talked, held the cups, and drank, I be- gan to see that Kajikawa seeks in everything he does to create a deeply felt harmony be- tween himself and his guests, between his art and its setting, between everyday life and eternal truth. The means to his ends can be extremely humble: with us he shared a cup of tea. But with that tea he invited us to join him on Klee’s bridge, and I started to under- stand the appropriateness of a Klee in the tokonoma. 1 The collector, who told me his story in Japan in Feb- ruary 2004, prefers to remain anonymous. 2 I thank Osamu Okuda, whose insights set me on the path for this project many years ago. Thank you to Grin- nell College and the Freeman Grant for supporting my research in Japan. Finally, many others in Switzerland, the United States, and especially Japan have gener- ously shared their time and thoughts. I thank Michael Baumgartner, Ed Gilday, Fumiko Goto, Marie Kak- ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE.ORG NO. 5 / SPRING 2018 112ANGER / KLEE AND JAPAN inuma, Fujio Maeda, Ayano Matsugu, Tsutomu Mizu- sawa, Kenjin Miwa, Saki Nagato, Isaharu Nishimura, Shogo Otani, Atsuko Sakai, Kazuhiko Satani, Makato Shindo, Rintaro Terakado, Noriko Togo, and Gennifer Weisenfeld. 3 Okuda 2007, 268. Unless otherwise noted, transla- tions are mine. 4 See Anger 2004, 149-52. 5 Zhuangzi lived in the 4th century BCE. Zahn 1920, n.p. 6 Wedderkop 1920, 10-11. 7 Hausenstein 1921, 86, 99. 8 Klee took a two-week trip to Tunisia with artist friends August Macke and Louis Moilliet in 1914. 9 See Okuda’s record of Klee’s exposure to Buddhism in Okuda 2013. 10 I am grateful to Nagato and Mizusawa for showing me Nakata’s extensive European art library, including a wide range of journals, at the Museum of Modern Art, Hayama. Nakata’s partial Wedderkop translation ap- peared in the exhibition catalogue, Nakata 1924. 11 Zahn 1920, 50. Thanks to Miwa and Otani for showing me Koga’s multiple renditions of Klee’s watercolors at the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Miwa suggests that Koga responded to the »emptiness« in Klee. 12 Hausenstein 1921, 5-8. 13 Pöggeler 2002, 211. See Hisamatsu 1971. 14 Ibid., 212. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 Klee 1920, 118. 19 Pöggeler 2002, 212. 20 Museum curators, interestingly, cite Klee’s repre- sentational aspects as making his relatively abstract art more accessible to the Japanese public than Wass- ily Kandinsky’s. This has been the experience of Nishimura and Goto at the Miyagi Museum of Art in Sendai and Ishikawa at the Utsunomiya Museum of Art. Conversations with the author, 4-5 February 2004. 21 Sharf 1993. 22 Pöggeler draws on Ohashi Ryôsuke’s theory of Noh theatre (Pöggeler 2002, 214). See Ryôsuke 1994. 23 html://kahitsukan.or.jp 24 Apparently this is not a singular occurrence. Togo, director of Togo Fine Art, told me that she has also ex- perienced a Klee in a tokonoma (Tokyo, 8 February 2004). 25 Kawabata 1962, 32. 26 Ibid., 40. 27 Ibid., 44-45. 28 Ibid., 72-73. 29 Kawabata’s traditionalism has been linked to Japan- ese nationalist ideology. See Miho Matsugu, »The War in Kawabata Yasunari’s Snow Country: Aesthetics of Empire, Politics of Literature, Struggle of Women,« Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 2005. 30 On Kawabata, Koga, and Klee, see Sakai 2002, 254- 56. 31 Shimura 1995, 81. Thanks to Sakai and Gilday for translation. 32 Ito 1995, 82-83. Thanks to Sakai and Gilday for trans- lation. 33 Conversation with the author and Goto, 10 February 2004. 34 For more on Ito and Klee, see Kakinuma 2013, pp. 128-35. 35 Toru Takemitsu’s All in Twilight (1988) and Akira Miyoshi’s Klee’s Picture books (1978-79) are other ex- amples. 36 At the time he had seen the paintings in reproduction only. Later he sought out the originals. Conversation with the author and Sakai, Yugawara, 9 February 2004. 37 To consider more contemporary Japanese artists in- spired by Klee, see Kakinuma 2013, especially Leiko Ikemura, pp. 122-27. Reinforcing our own thesis, Kakimura writes, »The theme of the crossing (Über- gang) is a central constant both in Ikemura’s and in Klee’s art« (123). 38 Tanaka/Tanaka 1973, 33, 83. 39 Ibid., 147-49. 40 Ann Temkin describes the technique in Temkin 1987, 25, 37n63. 41 Tanaka/Tanaka 1973, 149. 42 Sen no Rikyû, quoted in ibid., 146. 43 Conversation with the author and Ikeda, Kyoto, 13 February 2004. 44 Kajikawa reported that the only other Western artist whose works he will hang for the tea ceremony is Ben Nicholson. Bibliography Anger 2004 Jenny Anger, Paul Klee and the Decorative in Modern Art, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Hausenstein 1921 Wilhelm Hausenstein, Kairuan, oder die Geschichte vom Maler Klee, Munich: Wolff, 1921. Hisamatsu 1971 Shinichi Hisamatsu, Zen to Bijutsu [Zen and the Fine Arts], Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1971. ZWITSCHER-MASCHINE.ORG NO. 5 / SPRING 2018 113ANGER / KLEE AND JAPAN Ito 1995 Toyo Ito, »Kiwamete kyoteki na shizen no toraekata [A Very Contemporary Way to Understand Nature]«, in Asahi Bijutsukan 21, no. 6, October 1995, pp. 82-83. Kakinuma 2013 Marie Kakinuma, »Paul Klees Rezeption im heutigen Japan«, in Paul Klee und der ferne Osten: Vom Japanis- mus zu Zen, edited by Osamu Okuda and Marie Kak- inuma, Bern: Zentrum Paul Klee, 2013, pp. 101-37. Kawabata 1962 Yasunari Kawabata, The Old Capital (1962), translated by J. Martin Holman, San Francisco: North Point Press, 1987. Klee 1920 Paul Klee, »Beitrag für den Sammelband ‘Schöpferische Konfession’ (1920)«, in Paul Klee: Schriften, Rezensionen und Aufsätze, edited by Christian Geelhaar, Cologne: DuMont, 1976, p. 118. Matsugu 2005 Miho Matsugu, »The War in Kawabata Yasunari’s Snow Country: Aesthetics of Empire, Politics of Literature, Struggle of Women, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 2005. Nakata 1924 Nakata Sadanosuke, et al., Northern European Art, Tokyo: Garo Kudan, 1924. Okuda 2007 Osamu Okuda, »Warum mögen Japaner Paul Klee?«, in Japan und der Westen. Die erfüllte Leere, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, pp. 267-72. Okuda 2013 Osamu Okuda, »Klee und (Zen-)Buddhismus: Der ferne Osten«, in Paul Klee und der ferne Osten: Vom Japanis- mus zu Zen, edited by Osamu Okuda and Marie Kak- inuma, Bern: Zentrum Paul Klee, 2013, pp. 82-99. Pöggeler 2002 Otto Pöggeler, Bild und Technik: Heidegger, Klee und die moderne Kunst, Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2002. Ryôsuke 1994 Ohashi Ryôsuke, Kire: Das ‘Schöne’ in Japan (Cologne: DuMont, 1994). Sakai 2002 Tadayasu Sakai, »Paul Klee and Japan,« in Paul Klee and His Travels, Kamakura, Morioka, Tsu, and Mat- sumoto, 2002, pp. 254-56. Sharf 1993 Robert H. Sharf, »The Zen of Japanese Nationalism,« History of Religions 33, no. 1, 1993, pp. 1-43. Shimura 1995 Fukumi Shimura, »Inishie no hibiki [Ancient Harmony]«, in Asahi Bijutsukan 21, no. 6, October 1995, p. 81. Tanaka/Tanaka 1973 Sen’ô Tanaka and Sendô Tanaka, The Tea Ceremony (1973), Tokyo, New York, and London: Kodansha Inter- national, 2000. Temkin 1987 Ann Temkin, »Klee and the Avant-Garde 1912-1940«, in Paul Klee, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1987, pp. 13-37. Wedderkop 1920 H. v. Wedderkop, Paul Klee, Leipzig: Klinkhardt, 1920. Zahn 1920 Leopold Zahn, Paul Klee: Leben, Werk, Geist, Potsdam: Kiepenheuer, 1920.