"May I use a simile, the simile of the tree? The artist has studied this world of variety and has, we may suppose, unobtrusively found his way in. His
sense of direction has brought order into the passing stream of image and experience. This sense of direction in nature and life, this branching and spreading array, I shall compare with the root of the tree.
"From the root the sap flows to the artist, flows through him, flows to his eye.
"Thus he stands as the trunk of the tree.
"Battered and stirred by the strength of the flow,
he mold his vision into his work.
"
As, in full view of the world, the crown of the tree unfolds and spreads in time and in space, so with his work.
"Nobody would affirm that the tree grows its crown in the image of it roots. Between above and below can be no mirrored reflection. It is obvious that different functions expanding in different elements must produce vital divergences."
(Paul Klee,
On Modern Art, translated by Paul Findlay)
1. What does "sense of direction" mean?
2. What does Klee mean by the two blue sentences?
Please help me to answer those questions.
Thank you.
Cadzao