Vatican Museums

In 1921 Paul Klee was called by Walter Gropius to the Bauhaus and he moved to Weimar to fulfil his role as a lecturer. He thus began a period of intense theoretical and didactic work, and of stimulating interaction with other artists involved in this unprecedented initiative. The lithograph Die Heilige vom inneren Licht dates precisely from 1921; 100 versions with slight variations in colour and composition were produced. The synthetic forms, indebted to primitive cultures and childish drawings, form the image through an interplay of lines and surfaces. Klee set himself the challenge of annulling the bodily nature of the saint, to allow her strength and spiritual luminosity to emerge.