Among Klee's most sophisticated examples of his cutting technique is the watercolor "The Emperor's Fateful Hour." Here, Klee used cutting not to reproduce his work, but to intensify its thematic impact. In the original version, the three figures—the emperor, the puppet, and a small gnome—were arranged side by side, as if performing together on a puppet stage. In the montage, however, Klee interlocked them in such a way that the emperor and the puppet were blown apart by the poisonous gnome who had moved between them. The emperor was now not only overthrown, but destroyed, like a blown-up marionette. The central figure was no longer the monarch, but the gnome, who, as the personification of rebellion, had brought him down.