Michal Nagypal has been studying painting in Martin Mainer’s studio at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts for almost four years. In his paintings, he leads a dialogue with the old masters’ art through examining the structure of light, space and the overall composition, through mastering the cornerstones of painting rather than by literal citations. His painting of a painter’s desk as seen from above is captured with a similar passion for detail as that of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century. Besides fanciful landscapes in which dinosaurs are ridden by fierce warriors, striking figural subjects can be found in his works. In these, themes known from art history, such as a still life with fruit or protagonists dressed in cavalier doublets with white collars and cuffs, face elements and gestures of today: a mobile phone or a toothbrush, which brings an interesting play with anachronism into the canvas.