Joseph Haydn: String Quartet Op. 64 No. 2

František Kupka (1871-1957), *Autour d’un point,* signed ‘Kupka’ (lower right), gouache, watercolor and pencil on paper, 12 ¼ x 12 7/8 in. (31 x 32.7 cm.), Executed circa 1920-1925, Image Source: Christie’s

Autour d’un point is the most developed of a series of closely related works which culminated in an eponymous oil painting, now in the collection of the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. “In this early study, the brushwork and color as well as a slight blurring of the edges create a living, gently fluttering configuration that poses quietly on the surface,” explained Kathryn Allo. (exh. cat., op. cit., 1971)… Many of Kupka’s paintings grew out of a complex abstraction of a simple motion. For the present work, the rotating arcs stemmed from the path of motion of a young girl playing with a ball. “The earliest studies show the genesis of the idea: a mixture of the lotus flower (with its symbolism of mystical evolution), cosmic space and the Disks of Newton. As the image evolved, it became increasingly legible as the unfurled petals of a flower. Thus symbolic, cosmic and biological significance are combined…Autour d’un point is the consummate expression of Kupka’s vision. …(M. Rowell, František Kupka: A Retrospective, exh. cat., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1975, pp. 79 and 268).
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