I Am Sent to Relieve Mankind of a Nightmare (plate facing page 32) from Potsdamer Platz oder Die Nächte des neuen Messias. Ekstatische Visionen (Potsdamer Platz or The Nights of the New Messiah. Ecstatic Visions)

I Am Sent to Relieve Mankind of a Nightmare (plate facing page 32) from Potsdamer Platz oder Die Nächte des neuen Messias. Ekstatische Visionen (Potsdamer Platz or The Nights of the New Messiah. Ecstatic Visions) is a pivotal work by Paul Klee, executed in 1919. This piece belongs to a series of ten offset lithograph reproductions that form the complete illustrated book. Produced immediately following the collapse of the German Empire, the work captures the unsettling, visionary spirit of post-World War I Berlin. Klee’s vision here departs from pure abstraction, blending esoteric symbolism with fragmented, graphic forms reflective of the cultural and political turmoil of the time.

The complete volume, published by G. Kiepenheuer Verlag in Potsdam, marked an important moment in Klee's trajectory toward imagery influenced by Dada and Surrealism. While the title suggests a specific geographic location (Potsdamer Platz, a major Berlin hub), the visual language employed by Klee transforms the urban environment into a stage for profound spiritual and psychological struggle. The medium of offset lithography allowed for the mass reproduction of Klee’s delicate, linear drawings, translating his eccentric visual vocabulary into the accessible format of a printed book. This particular plate, I Am Sent to Relieve Mankind of a Nightmare, typifies Klee's use of simple, childlike figures rendered in stark relief, perhaps embodying the exhausted hope for redemption after conflict.

This classification as an illustrated book highlights the importance of graphic arts in the 1919 German art scene. Klee, a crucial figure in the Bauhaus movement shortly thereafter, used these prints to disseminate his complex, often satirical, visions. The complete portfolio is recognized as a key example of Expressionist graphic art. The Museum of Modern Art holds this significant piece, preserving the integrity of Klee's early twentieth-century output. As foundational works of this period increasingly enter the public domain, high-quality prints allow scholars and enthusiasts worldwide to study this definitive example of Klee's critical response to the postwar condition.