"I paint, yes, but only conceptions, syntheses, harmonies."
František Kupka, known simply as Kupka, was a Czech artist who lived through all the artistic movements of the first half of the 20th century while retaining his independence. He was one of the founders of abstraction from the early 1910s, though he never accepted the term: "Painting is not abstract, it is concrete". Influenced by symbolism and the Viennese Secession, Kupka's interest in different cultures and religions is reflected in an astonishing array of shapes and colors that evoke the stained glass windows of Gothic cathedrals, the superimposed structures of Hindu temples, or arabesque lines inspired by Islamic art. His work is characterized by dynamic shapes and colors, moving from organic abstraction to geometric abstraction over the interwar period. Music, meanwhile, remains one of his main sources of inspiration.