[1][2][3] Herbert Read called the collection "the most complete presentation of the principles of design ever made by a modern artist – it constitutes the Principia Aesthetica of a new era of art, in which Klee occupies a position comparable to Newton's in the realm of physics.

"[4][5] The final work was edited by Swiss artist Jürg Spiller and Marcel Franciscono criticized Spiller's collection of Klee's notes as "extensive but drastically rearranged", and added that the lectures "are interspersed with later notes and in part rearranged.

Despite Spiller's notation of their sources in Klee's manuscripts, it is not always possible to determine from his arrangement where a lecture leaves off and an interpolation begins.

"[4] In an earlier 1925 shorter book, Pädagogisches Skizzenbuch ('Pedagogical Sketchbook'), Klee published a condensation of his lectures at the Weimar Bauhaus.

[4] The original title is Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre ('Writings on form and design theory'), and the two volumes are titled Band I: Das bildnerische Denken ('Volume I: the creative thinking') and Band 2: Unendliche Naturgeschichte ('Volume 2: Infinite Natural History'); they were edited by Jürg Spiller and first published in Switzerland (Basel) and Germany (Stuttgart) by publishing house Benno Schwab, in 1956 and 1964 respectively.