Let me quote Meicher’s definition in an abridged form: A painting is an intellectual construction both when it is an excerpt from reality and when it is a record of experience, an idée fixe, or a conscious or unconscious obsession. A painting may not only oust reality, but it may substitute for it. (Thus construed), a painting is real. In other words, a painting exists as a real object.”

Our reasons for being creative or, less pretentiously but perhaps more precisely, for practicing our professions, may be various; however, in any case they are rooted in our emotional and intellectual structure and, naturally, in the creative output of others hitherto. We do not like to be asked why we do what we do partly because we may not always know the answer, partly for fear that our answer should become a mutation of circulating opinions.

In our world chance may be a stimulus to action just as well as precise planning and methodical organization.

Our subjective feelings tell us that in art no strict line may be drawn between emotional and intellectual motivations. There is little point in trying to establish which is the true way. Our truth, like any other truth, is a concept, and its value lies in its transformations, the more radical the better. Pascal expressed it superbly in his “Pensees”.

Adam Styka’s painting that we may here see in details is a compact, logical construction of signs and colors. He grants drawing and graphic art the same rights as painting. They all spring from the same, lucid method. Significantly, Styka’s method is not an abstract product of his will but a natural, organic part of his mental structure and philosophy.

Art reaches a spectator along various paths. Sometimes it appeals to our mind through emotions. At other times, it stimulates emotions through reason. It is difficult to draw a strict line between the two because different people often respond to the same painting in different ways. And this probably applies to the perception of Styka’s art.