Paul Klee Quotes: Google Doodle Celebrates German-Swiss Artist's 139th Birthday

Tuesday marks the 139th birthday of German-Swiss artist Paul Klee, who is one of the most celebrated painters of the 20th century. On this day, Google Doodle paid tribute to Klee's 10,000 paintings, drawings and etchings which he created during his lifetime.

"Influenced by movements such as cubism, surrealism, and expressionism, Paul Klee explored numerous styles to develop his own approach to art-making—both rigorous and childlike—which defies categorization," Google wrote.

The Google Doodle for Tuesday was a homage to Klee's "Rote Brücke (Red Bridge), a 1928 work that transforms the rooftops and arches of a European city into a pattern of shapes rendered in contrasting yet harmonious hues."

Here are some inspiring quotes to remember Klee on his birthday.

1. "The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions."

2. "To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers."

3. "Everything vanishes around me, and works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will."

4. "One eye sees, the other feels."

5. "He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise."

6. "Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter."

7. "Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible."

8. "A line is a dot that went for a walk."

9. "Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn."

10. "A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller."

Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, on Dec. 18, 1879, to two trained musicians. Klee played in a symphony orchestra before deciding to become a painter. He married pianist Lily Stumpf in 1906 and the duo settled in Munich where Klee, a German citizen (though he had a claim to Swiss citizenship) pursued his art career.

His work included sketching landscapes, caricatures, panel paintings, works on paper, graphics, and sculptures. He also studied dots, lines, planes, and forms observed from nature.

Klee died in 1940 after an illness now recognized as scleroderma.