A thread on Parnassus and Paul Klee:

Klee was a Swiss-German painter that practiced extensively from 1898 until his death in 1940. His work was influenced by cubism and expressionism. He taught at Bauhaus with colleague Kandinsky.

Parnassus #91 and Klee's "Black Columns"

Despite practicing long before computers were invented, Klee's aesthetic eventually became hugely influential on algorithmic art and has been explored academically and artistically by multiple generative art pioneers and art historians.

#30 and "Colors from a Distance"

Parnassus is a namesake of my favorite painting by Klee, Ad Parnassum. Multiple elements of this painting are present throughout the collection. This includes stippling/pointillism, intersected geometry, and strange perspective.

#45 and "Ad Parnassum"

Parnassus is a mountain in Greece. In Greek mythology, Parnassus was the home of the Muses. Because I used Klee's work as a type of muse when creating this project, I felt that Parnassus was a fitting name.

Most of Klee's work is compositionally simple, nearly childlike, yet his use of color was extraordinarily complex. He was driven by a passion for color theory. Most of the pieces in Parnassus use variations of palettes sourced from Klee paintings.

#64 and "Gradation Red Green"

Here is another example, with the Parnassus palette "Autumn":

#58 and "Highways and Byways"

Many of Klee's paintings include elements of the natural world. In several Parnassus editions, a sun, moon, and tree can be seen. Most of the time these features are occluded while the piece is generating, but sometimes they remain.

#23 (75% generated) and "Night Flowers"

Klee often painted man made objects and cityscapes. I tried to incorporate this through perspective, a sensation of looking upwards at tall buildings. Several editions appear especially industrial/art deco and I felt this spoke well to the aura of Berlin.

#38 and "Castle & Sun"

With Parnassus, I wanted to create an algorithm that merges Klee's style and my own. Many editions of Parnassus begin by drawing a flat, Klee-like composition. Depth and further complexity build on top of this foundation to create something unique and pseudo-3D.

#40 and #0

This transformation of 2D media into 3D is something I pursue in most of my work. Several pieces (18/100 with the "2D" trait) remain flat, and are an homage to Klee. These pieces may undergo a small transformation themselves in the coming days.

#19 and "May Picture"

Back in college, when I first started creative coding, a professor assigned projects where we had to emulate an artist's style w/code. Parnassus was an excuse to do this again, to revisit a magical part of my life when I discovered generative art.

#35 and “Dogmatic Composition”

I am very proud of Parnassus. It was an overwhelming and unique experience to have a physical show in Berlin, to meet many of those who minted, and to see it displayed at such a huge scale. Thank you to all who participated in the release. @brtmoments

opensea.io/collection/parnassus-by-mpkoz