Parted Form

The National Gallery possesses a precious collection of small pictures by Václav Boštík, most of which were made at the beginning of the 1940s. Their minimalist rendering is beyond Czech painting of that time. The artist focuses on elementary geometric volumes which provide an opportunity to seek the light quality of a material. Analogies with the art production of Josef Šíma are revealed in the cultivated style and classical reserve of these pictures which include the Shape. The tension between the small size of these pictures and their composition’s generosity along with the concentration of the painter’s rendition make these ‘archaic’ pictures an important testimony of Boštík’s early work.