Purkyně´s Children

One of Purkyně's last pictures, which remained unfinished, is this triple portrait of his children - Jan (born 1860), Cyril (born 1862) and Růžena (born 1864). The unfinished painting reveals Purkyně's method. The foundation was dark underpainting, which the artist then covered with pastose layers of colour tones. To achieve plastic forms and to show the nature of materials Purkyně resorted to lights of white paint and thicker or thinner layers of pastose colours, which he then merged with not too pronounced washes, not seen in this picture. Purkyně endowed the portraits of his children with psychological traits, thus creating one of the best works of his late period.