Action I (Egg) 1956

Mikuláš Medek painted ‘Action I (Egg)’ in an unknown year with what looks like oils on canvas. What I notice first is this uncanny blue palette and the precise but bizarre figuration. I’m trying to imagine Medek working on this, layering up that blue, trying to nail the pose of the figure, and that drip of egg yolk. What’s the action? Is it breaking the egg, or holding it in stasis? The way the blue flattens the space and models the figure reminds me of some of the surrealist painters. The color gives it such a cold and otherworldly feeling, you know? I can imagine him mixing up that blue, trying to get just the right tone, maybe thinking about Yves Klein’s blue monochromes, and this shared interest in purity, the symbolic value of color. It’s like a meditation, this painting. Artists are always having a conversation with each other, even across time, riffing off each other's ideas, and letting the unexpected happen.