Planes by Colours, Large Nude

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (the USA).

Oil on canvas.

Although the plot of the work is quite academic – a female nude – the artist used unrealistic colours to model the body and face of the naked model, his wife and muse Eugenia. The author divides the figure into several tonal planes. There is a dichotomy between naturalistic details (a carefully drawn figure, a sunray emphasizing the model’s foot) and less realistic elements. The duality of the work is accentuated by its name – here the vocabulary of modernism coexists with the vocabulary of traditional art. Frantisek Kupka believed in the existence of an invisible dimension hidden under the visual and tried to detect it in his art, revealing the “inner form” through colour schemes. Horizontal and vertical stripes of the background deprive the picture of depth, as a result of the influence of Cubism. At the same time, the author pays tribute to the vibrant colours and techniques of Fauvism, especially works of Henri Matisse. However, the picture is something more than an imitation of other styles, although this is still an experimental work of Kupka.