Animal Destinies (Tierschicksale)

1913

Oil on canvas, 194.7 × 263.5 cm. Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel

A forest splinters into crossing shafts of red, green and blue, with a blue deer, red boars and green animals caught inside. It reads as a vision of violence and collapse in nature.

Probably first shown at the First German Autumn Salon in Berlin, whose catalogue the museum lists.
On the back is a German line saying that all existence is burning pain; it is now covered by a lining added later.
Look at the brownish right third: it burned in a 1917 warehouse fire, and Klee repainted it in 1919, leaving his repair visible.
Prism-like, broken shapes tear the scene apart so that no part of the forest holds still.
The city museum in Halle lost it in the 1937 "degenerate art" seizures; Basel acquired it in 1939.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · PD-Art