Twittering Machine (Die Zwitscher-Maschine)

Paul Klee

1922

A playful, uncanny depiction of a bird-producing contraption, rendered by Paul Klee in delicate ink and watercolor with oil-transfer textures to suggest sound and motion.

At first glance you’re drawn to the thin, spidery birds perched on a trembling zigzag wire against a shimmering turquoise-and-mauve wash, their beaks and mechanical joints sketched with a jittery, musical rhythm.

This 1922 work crystallizes Klee’s Bauhaus-era experiments in translating musical rhythm and mechanical motion into pictorial language, influencing later surrealist, abstract, and kinetic approaches to sound and movement.

Palette

Art Terms

Degenerate art Drawing Watercolor Ink Gouache Bauhaus Biomorphic Surrealism

Exhibitions

Prints by Paul Klee

1954

The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age

1968

Paul Klee

1987

Paul Klee

1941