Planes by Colors (Great Nude) 1909

Frantisek Kupka painted "Planes by Colors (Great Nude)" with oil on canvas, and it looks like he had a really good time doing it. I imagine him, brush in hand, almost dancing as he laid down those strokes, deciding which color should meet which, making the figure emerge out of a playful arrangement of stripes, blocks and planes. The palette is so interesting – purples, greens, yellows, and blues, knitted together to form a reclining nude, like a figure from a dream or a memory. The paint isn’t super thick, but you can still feel the hand of the artist in it. Look at how the colors bleed into one another, creating these soft, almost blurry edges. It’s as if Kupka is saying that the body isn’t just a fixed form but something fluid, something that shifts and changes with our perception of it. I feel like Kupka is chatting with other painters here, like Matisse and Picasso, but doing his own special thing. Ultimately, painting is a conversation across time, where each artist borrows, riffs, and reinvents what came before.