Kupka Frantisek

Study for painting Keys of the Piano - Lake, 1909

watercolor, paper; 28,7 x 26,5 cm, frame, passe-partout, glass; sign. bottom left Kupka; This aquarelle represents an extremely important concept of painting ‘Piano Keyboard/Lake’, which is located in the collection of National Gallery in Prague. In the context of Kupka’s works, this painting including its preparatory phase marked a break in his representational style. Painting ‘Piano Keyboard/Lake’ balances on the verge of reality (that is represented by partially recognizable piano keyboard) and abstraction. Before Kupka moved to pure abstraction around 1910/1911 he had experimented with theory focused on internal relationship between painting and expressive qualities of music (orphism). He expressed musical rhytm through motion, lines, colours and dynamics of their tones, while piano itself is a symbolic personification of a clash of material and spiritual experience. In the process of creation of Kupka’s ‘colour music’ thia study is one of unique and authentic creative moments.