Abstract Composition (Abstraktní komposzice)

While residing in Paris from 1924 to 1934, the Czech painter František Foltýn was an active participant in the international art scene of the French capital city—first as a member of the geometric figurative and abstract art group called Cercle et carré, and then in its successor group named Abstraction-Création. During his Paris sojourn, Foltýn gradually developed his own laws of abstraction celebrating the relationship of line, color, and space without any reference to recognizable imagery from the world around him. He based his new painting manner on a synthesis between Cubist geometrics from around World War I and Surrealist biomorphic shapes of the late 1920s. Both of these stylistic trends come together in his Abstract Composition of 1930, where intersecting geometric shapes organize and contain a centralized composition of interlocking and overlapping organic forms. This harmonious arrangement of contrasting elements and hues represents Foltýn's theories about the underlying rhythms of the cosmos in which space, music, rhythm, form, and color link into a cohesive and abstract whole.