Diváci 1912

Emil Filla made this painting called 'Divaci', which means 'Spectators' in Czech, with a palette of greens, browns, and beiges. I can imagine the painting coming into being through an exchange of color, the tones shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. There are forms in here that are definitely heads. Cubism is about seeing all sides of something at once, and Filla must have felt the excitement of this new way of seeing and wanted to capture that. There's a lot of geometry, but it's like broken geometry – soft, not hard. I like the way he’s trying to convey the feeling of people looking, seeing, and being present. Think about Picasso, Braque, Gris... there's a conversation happening between all these painters, they were bouncing ideas off one another and inspiring each other’s creativity. In the end, painting is a form of expression which embraces uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations and meaning, rather than one fixed way of looking at the world.