Once emerged from the gray of night

Today's tie is from the Gallery Collection by Christina Desiree, and is based on Paul Klee's 1918 painting (and poem) Once Emerged from the Gray of Night. The painting itself has a gray band in the middle, which I take to represent the gray of night, and which was dropped from the necktie design. I think I would have kept it, but the tie is still special. In this one piece Klee has created not only beautiful pattern of letters and colors, but a work which ties in the sounds of the words and the meaning of the poem they assemble. Translated into English, the poem reads:

Once emerged from the gray of night,
Then heavy and precious and strong from the fire--
In the evening filled with God and bowed...

[gray band]

Ethereally now rained round with blue,
floating off over mountains' snowcaps to wise
constellations.

(And if I can find again where I found the translation, I will give credit for it; it wasn't me.) A fine testimonial to this painting's influence is the fact that it is still used as an art exercise for children.