Composition 1922

Lajos Kassak made this artwork, called 'Composition,' sometime in the early to mid-20th century with simple graphic shapes and a black and white palette. The crispness of the lines gives it a real machine-age feel, so I can imagine Kassak carefully arranging stencils, maybe even feeling like he was constructing something, rather than just painting. There’s a strong vertical pull, almost like a totem or a musical instrument, with a triangular shape at the top that could almost be a metronome. Then your eye travels down to the circle with the smaller circle cut out, joined together by three lines which are reminiscent of strings on a guitar. He’s playing with abstraction, right? Reduction, too. The forms are bold. It reminds me of a conversation between different movements and how the artist draws on ideas from constructivism and surrealism in their own way. When you stand in front of this picture, you’re drawn into this silent but somehow sonorous space of shapes and forms.