acrylic on canvas
1998
on the reverse
110 × 110 cm
The present canvas, Lines No. 164, is an exceptionally striking example of Zdeněk Sýkora’s mature work. Sýkora was one of the most important figures in Czech post-war art and a pioneer of international significance in the use of computers in the preparation of works of art. Although his work is primarily associated with geometry, systems and modern technology, nature remained his enduring point of departure. Throughout his life, he maintained close ties with Louny, the landscape of the Central Bohemian Uplands and the River Ohře, and repeatedly returned to plein-air painting alongside his abstract work. From his early landscapes and the vividly coloured Gardens series, he progressed in the early 1960s to structural compositions and subsequently to his line paintings, in which he combined a strictly defined system with the principle of chance. The organic movement of the lines thus does not represent a rejection of nature, but rather a new expression of it. It evokes growth, currents, collisions and the constant transformation inherent in living processes.
The creation of a line painting was preceded by the artist’s fundamental conception of its character and the establishment of precise rules. Sequences of random numbers then determined the number of lines, their starting points, length, width, colour, direction of movement and manner of intersecting. The result was a numerical score according to which the composition was transferred to the canvas with the utmost precision. The computer therefore did not create the painting itself, but served as a tool for freeing the final result from the artist’s immediate decision-making.
The execution itself remained a painstaking and time-consuming process of painting, as the present canvas also demonstrates. Against a pristine white ground, Sýkora set in motion a dynamic tangle of lines that cluster, intersect and curve in the left-hand part of the canvas, while the right-hand half remains almost empty. The freedom of the lines may evoke the movement of air or the force of the wind. The artist muted the individual hues by adding black, which unified their overall effect. The tension between concentrated movement and the expansive, unoccupied space lends the composition exceptional lightness, energy and spatial depth.
The work was exhibited in Umělecká beseda 98‘ (Mánes, Prague, 18 December 1998 – 15 January 1999). The Lenka and Zdeněk Sýkora Archive lists it as L 164; the score for the painting is recorded in Notebook 10. The work comes from a distinguished Moravian collection. It was assessed during consultations with Prof. J. Zemina and PhDr. K. Srp. An expert opinion by L. Sýkorová, the artist’s wife, is attached.
