Hommage à Paul Klee

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Frieder Nake

1966

Plotter Drawing

The Ragnar 100

Description

Hommage à Paul Klee translates painterly intuition into algorithmic structure. Drawing inspiration from Klee’s High Roads and Byroads (1929), Nake devised a program that investigates proportion, rhythm, and the interaction of vertical and horizontal lines. Evenly spaced linear sequences converge and diverge across the picture plane, while circular forms register variations in amplitude and height generated by the algorithm. Rather than reproducing Klee’s image, Nake abstracted its compositional logic, allowing the computer to make controlled choices within defined parameters. Produced as a plotter drawing and later transferred to a screenprint, the work expresses Nake’s belief that the computer could be a tool for exploring how aesthetic principles can be formalized and reinterpreted through symbolic computation.