Detail

The work „Nocturne“ is among the first of the fully abstract pictures created by the Czech modernist Frantisek Kupka in the 1910. After a classic education at the academy of fine arts in Prague and in Vienna the painter moved to France at the turn of the century. Still attached with symbolic art which was influenced by Art Nouveau he impressively managed to progress from the figurative to the abstract in that period. Kupka, as he himself puts it, sees artistic work as an abstract reality that demands to be created out of invented elements. This is why the vertical picture elements in “Nocturne” do not refer to a reality outside the picture and are thus not a representation of it. They rather exist for and through the fascinating play of colours and overlapping forms. Kupka’s brilliantly coloured paintings, mainly abstract colour circles that are composed like fuges, reflect various topics such as spirituality, cosmic imagination, and music. According to Kupka, they enchant or move the spectator without disturbing the organic colour of natural phenomena. Although often mentioned in line with names like Kandinsky, Delaunay and Mondrian, Kupka’s directive contribution to the art of the 20th century has not been sufficiently valued for a long period of time. It was only after his death in 1957, that his complex work has been made accessible to a broad public in extensive retrospectives.