In 1901 Klee wrote in his diary in Rome: “I have now an overview of the culture of the Antiquity and her Renaissance. But I can’t imagine an adequate artistic viewpoint regarding our own time. That makes me desperate. With as a result for me to come in a satirical mood. Shall I never become positive?”.

Segantini 1894 – “The bad Mother”

In this period he underwent the influence of the graphic of Segantini and of Beardsley. He develops a “late Gothic technic” of the old masters in combination with grotesque allegories.  

The Comedian
Comedian

In 1906 Klee marries the pianist Lily Stumpf and moves to München where his etchings will be exhibited at the Münchener Sezession. His drawings from now on get a more ascetic linear character.

Klee : “Caricature of a piece of furniture”- 1910

At this time Klee is offered a position as a draftsman for Simplicissimus of Th. Heine and Olaf Gulbransson. At one condition: to polish his style of drawing and to accommodate it to the Jugendstil style of Simplicissimus, which Klee declines.

See also the elaboration of this post in the site “ARTIST & CARICATURE”.