LOUPIAN
Ciné Art is a monthly event featuring a short lecture followed by a film on the life of an artist: Franti?ek KUPKAFranti?ek Kupka was a Czech painter who discovered painting as a self-taught artist, then took drawing classes at a local art school, where he was taught to reproduce motifs from popular decorative art. Considered the precursor of abstract art, Kupka never wanted to belong to any particular movement. Initially influenced by Symbolism, he gradually moved away from the representation of reality to explore color, movement and pure form. The theme of verticality is also omnipresent in his work. It appeared in his work around 1909, as he sought to represent movement and introduce the fourth dimension, time, into painting. During his eighty-five years of life, he witnessed many upheavals in art, from symbolism to pop art, via impressionism, cubism and, of course, abstract art, but always maintained his independence and freedom from all the great “-isms” of art. A pioneer of abstraction, he always refused to be called an “abstract artist”, explaining: “Is my painting abstract? What’s abstract about it? Painting is concrete: color, form, dynamics. What counts is invention. You have to invent and then build”.
