Dive into the avant-garde with the "Man entering a room"

While his peers were rushing to Paris, the most famous “Latvian Italian” Niklāvs Strunke from 1923 to 1927 lived in Italy.

He took inspiration not only from the French cubists but also the art of the Italian Futurists and Early Renaissance.

A study for this painting was made already in 1924 in Rome and shows evidence of the artist's links to the world of Italian avant-garde theatre.

In line with the futurist desire to bring movement into the work of art, Strunke shows a man who is entering a room yet is neither completely in nor outside of it.

The empty room, containing a table and an electric lightbulb as the only source of light, gives the work an additional emotional dimension, causing a mild sense of anxiety.

It gives the impression that the depiction of the real world in the painting has merged with the imagery of subconscious moods.