Composition 1931

This 'Composition' was made by Toyen in 1931, and looking at it, I’m imagining a wet-on-wet watercolour technique, the kind where colours bleed into each other, creating these soft, dreamy shapes. The colours are muted, mostly pinks, yellows and blues. You can see how the painting emerges through layering. I wonder what Toyen was thinking, working with these colours, letting them flow and merge, maybe chasing after an elusive form. I see them trying to trap an idea in paint, letting it shift and transform on the paper's surface, kind of like trying to catch smoke. The texture is smooth, the paint thin, almost like a stain on the paper, but within that there's a real depth, a kind of emotional resonance. I think of other artists like Hilma af Klint, who explored abstraction as a way to visualize spiritual realities. Maybe Toyen was trying to do something similar, using abstraction to suggest the unseen. Painting is like this ongoing exchange, right? We build on each other's ideas, challenge them, and keep the conversation going.