![Frantisek Kupka - Planes by Colours, Large Nude [1909-10]](http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1514/25056248466_0e69a38495_o.jpg)
Although he moved to Paris at a young age, Frantisek Kupka’s Bohemian origins, mysticism, and eccentric personality kept him at a distance from the avant-garde circles of the artistic capital. An individualist, he rejected association with any artistic school or trend, but his paintings’ aggressive palette and dependence on colour as a means of faceting form and conveying meaning show undeniable affinities with Fauvism and the work of Henri Matisse, as well as with Orphism, Robert Delaunay’s colour-based brand of Cubism. A devoted mystic, Kupka (1871 - 1957) spent his life in search of a transcendental other reality, or fourth dimension. One of the first non-objective artists, he extended his clairvoyant practice to his art as well, by uniting a metaphysical investigation of the human body and nature with daring colour and abstract form.
[Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York - Oil on canvas, 150.2 x 180.7 cm]