Paul Klee & Ad Parnassum

Or where poetry dwells

Ad Parnassum (originaler, gefasster Holzrahmen), Paul Klee (1932).

… the dear sons of Autolycus busied themselves with the carcase,
and the wound of noble, god-like Odysseus they bound up skilfully,
and checked the black blood with a charm,
and straightway returned to the house of their dear father.
Homer, Odyssey (19:455)

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There are at least two mountains of Parnassus (Παρνασσός). One of them is located in central Greece, north of the Gulf of Corinth, towering with its two peaks and surrounding the temple of the famous Delphic oracle. No matter how many times we look around, we will find neither Apollo nor the Muses on this rocky peak. Of this first Mount Parnassus, we may claim that it is real, even if we have not seen it, so far as it is locatable and corresponds to a certain latitude and longitude. The other, though related to the first, cannot be so easily, and perhaps not at all, discovered. It is located in that most subtle, exquisite, recognizable, and at the same time unknowable quality of human presence — our imagination.