Landscape with Little Church

In 1910 the Czech lands were the industrial heart of Austria-Hungary, and Kubišta put that straight into a country view. A small church with a baroque tower sits on a yellow hill. Below it two factory chimneys pour out thick black smoke that curls across the sky like ribbons. Nothing here is shaded softly. Every field, roof and tree is laid down as a flat patch of strong colour and closed with a heavy dark outline, the red path, the orange bushes, the deep green mass of foliage at the right. Even the smoke gets the same treatment, drawn as solid bands. A single pink cloud floats above it all. The canvas came to the Belvedere in 2012 as a long-term loan from the Rotter collection.