Dean’s Lecture Series: Alejandro Vallega on Paul Klee

“Making Secret Vision Visible”: The Sense of Painting in Paul Klee’s Cosmological Thought A lecture by Alejandro Vallega Delivered May 8th, 2022 For Paul Klee, Modern Art and philosophy in their distinct ways share in the dynamic disclosure of the world. By reading closely Klee’s seminal lecture “On Modern Art” (1924) and through looking closely at his paintings, the discussion shows that for him painting, like philosophy, engages in the very movement of nature’s becoming in passing. Thus, painting appears as an originary articulate experience of life through the artists’ and the publics’ concrete engagement with the painter’s materials. Ultimately, painting turns out to happen as a silent language of vision that bears the secret of the world’s visibility and coming to be. Alejandro A. Vallega was trained as a painter at the Massachusetts School of Arts and Design before entering St. John’s College (class of 1993). He received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Vienna, Austria. C