Joseph Nechvatal reviews Paul Klee: L’Ironie à l’Oeuvre at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, on view through August 1, 2016.

Nechvatal writes: “The key to Paul Klee’s wonderfully shaped energy is not ironic detachment, as the title of the Centre Pompidou’s current retrospective suggests, but rather the playful and idyllic emotion he transmits through masterly line and dusty color. There is certainly antagonistic intellectual wit in his brand of romantic spirituality, but I see more tenderness than detachment.”