The artwork titled “Oriental Garden” is a creation by the renowned artist Paul Klee, completed in the year 1939. It is an exemplary manifestation of the Cubism art movement, portraying a landscape genre that imbues the canvas with a sense of structural fragmentation typical of Cubist works.
In examining the artwork, one is greeted with an assortment of geometric shapes interlocking with one another to form the semblance of a garden. The color palette is predominantly composed of muted purples, blues, and browns, which conjure an atmosphere both serene and enigmatic. There is an absence of traditional perspective, with the various elements of the scene superimposed and side-by-side in a flat, almost two-dimensional plane. The resultant effect is one of a rhythmic composition, with the different shapes perhaps symbolizing flora or architectural features common in gardens, alluding to the work’s title. Despite the abstraction, the viewer is able to discern a deliberate arrangement of forms, suggesting pathways, vegetation, and structures that one might expect to find in an oriental garden, all unified by Klee’s distinct compositional language and subtle gradations of hue.
