Paul Klee's earlier works were most etchings created with a pencil and paper. Throughout his life, Klee maintained a sense of satirical humor in his artwork, as you can see in this example. Klee had a tendency to distort human bodies and faces to look both comical and a little disturbing. This particular work, and many of this other earlier works, has an underlying political message. The subjects are meant to be Emperor Wilhelm II and Franz Joseph I of Austria. One interpretation of this piece is that Klee is making fun of these two emperors because they each try to bow lower than the other in order to show greater respect than the other, which in turn makes both of them look like fools. Of course, the fact that both men are not wearing cloths only adds to the comedy of this piece.

However, Klee would soon abandon pencil and paper for other mediums of art. It was around this time that Klee gave up solitary work to join the artists of the Blaue Reiter.

Mid-Career Works