Formist nude

This is one of the most important paintings for the artist's work, realizing most postulates of theoreticians of formism. The subject of the painting is to present the movement and rhythm, the objectivity of the motif is only an excuse. Shown among the curtains and fragments of architecture, the woman was stopped in motion as if by the flash of a photographic lamp. Pronaszko used here, in accordance with the postulates of formism, his knowledge about the achievements of analytic cubism. The image is broken into geometrical forms and structurally compact. They are additionally joined by the color brought to the subtle game of shades of two colors: gray and broken pink. The work was preceded by numerous sketches of ink and a pencil. One of them, Pronaszko, placed on the cover of the version of the catalog of the 1st Exhibition of Polish Expressionists (1917). According to the same compositional scheme, he created a sculpture, not preserved to this day, depicting a model with an upraised hand.

After breaking with the formist movement, the artist began to critically approach his achievements so far. One of the proofs is the fact that he treated the Formist Act as a sub-image, painting a realistic portrait of a cellist on his back.