Angelus Novus (EN)

I have always liked the paintings of Paul Klee. This summer I had the opportunity to visit the cultural center in Berne dedicated to his work.
I saw a very beautiful exhibition of Klee’s work relating to plants, called “In Paul Klee’s Enchanted Garden”.
And I saw “Lost Paradise – The Angel’s Gaze”, an exhibition of works of various artists which takes its cue from Walter Benjamin’s interpretation of Klee’s work Angelus Novus. Which reminded me of my fascination with Benjamin’s writing. I don’t know much of it, but I have some favorite bits, like the Angelus Novus quote and some of the pieces in “Berlin Childhood”…

“A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one perceives the angel of history. His face is towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.” (Walter Benjamin)