Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: "Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic)" by Francis Picabia is an oil-on-canvas painting from 1913 that measures about 10 feet square. The work features shapes in a cacophony of bold colors that form a dynamic abstract composition and convey three-dimensionality and movement.  

Black tones command the painting’s grand, larger-than-life scale. Deep black shapes seem to recede as if layered beneath the brighter, more vibrant shapes that rhythmically fill the rest of the composition. Each shape is cleanly defined. Many are geometric polygons with hard, straight edges. These are painted gold, rust, vibrant grape purple, ocean blue, gray, and white. The colors within each shape are not uniform but rather fade from deep vibrant shades into lighter, whiter, and more opaque tones. This color play adds to the work’s dynamic sense of layering, depth, and movement. 

Many shapes also feature one or more organically curved edges. For instance, a rust-colored shape slightly below left of center is defined by a straight, hard line on its right side. The line is oriented diagonally, as if pointing from the bottom left of the canvas toward the top right. The shape’s left edge is organic—a curved line bows out from its bottom and tapers as it moves upward.  

A few striking and unusual shapes in the work convey a sense of three-dimensional movement. Near the upper left, layering of purple shapes may suggest that they are floating in space like falling paper confetti. Near the right of the composition’s center, a black corkscrew begins to curve in a clockwise direction while simultaneously descending. It completes one full circle while its gently winding tail drops.  

Near the composition’s center sits a white boomerang shape. Other white shapes cluster in this area. Two circles seem to be layered, one slightly offset from the other. Two columns, not straight but gently bowing to the left, drop from the boomerang shape. At the columns’ bottoms, there is a small shape that tilts slightly to the upper left of the canvas. 

The artist, Picabia, was preoccupied with bodies in motion, and these dynamic white forms represent the head, body, legs, and feet of a dancing figure. The title of the painting, written lightly at the upper right edge of the canvas, is nonsensical in French but acts as a quasi-anagram of étoil[e] and dans[e], meaning “star” and “dancer”. It references the dancer and film star Stacia Napierkowska who Picabia encountered during a performance aboard an ocean liner. Her figure moves amongst the angular metallic grey and undulating blue shapes representing the ship and movements of the ocean. The subtitle, "Ecclesiastic," points to a priest the artist once spotted intently observing dancers, perhaps represented in the painting by vibrant purple.

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