Paul Klee and the Energetics-Atomistics Controversy

Paul Klee’s illustrations to Voltaire’s Candide, dating from 1911–1912, and a group of his “protoCubist” drawings completed later in 1912 exemplify two different styles of representation. The characteristic features of the different styles may well reflect the influence of a scientific “diversion” mentioned in Klee’s Diaries. This paper proposes that Klee’s Candide illustrations give visual form to Wilhelm Ostwald’s concept of nervous energy and that the later drawings incorporate a visual model of kinetic energy derived from Jean Perrin’s diagram of Brownian trajectories.