Senecio (Head of a Man Going Senile)

Klee painted Senecio (Latin for 'old man') at the Bauhaus in 1922. The face is constructed entirely of geometric blocks of colour — circles, squares, triangles — but the relationships between them produce a face that is unmistakably an old man: tilted eyes, raised eyebrow, mouth opening in surprise. A Bauhaus demonstration that emotion can be built from pure geometry. 41 × 38 cm. Now at Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel @kunstmuseumbasel