The Forest

In 1912 Prague had its own circle of Cubists, the Group of Fine Artists. Josef Čapek had helped to found it and edited its magazine, the Art Monthly, after nearly a year in Paris, where he had seen the new French painting at first hand. This small square canvas dates from that year. The forest is broken into arches, wedges and pale upright trunks, laid on thickly in turquoise, grey and black with raw white strokes. A thin crescent sits in the grey band at the top, beside his monogram and the date. Čapek was already pulling the style towards something freer and more expressive. By the end of 1912 he had left the group with several friends after arguments over it. The painting came to the Belvedere in 2012 as a long-term loan from the Rotter collection in Vienna.