According to the painter and critic Pierre-Antoine Gallien, to whom the artist gave this work in 1921, “It is Frank Kupka (1871–1957) that opened up the path of art for art’s sake”. "Crystal" is part of a body of works devoted to the deep and abstract expression of nature. Conceived as “a complex whole, an organism endowed with its specific qualities of existence, living its own life on its own account”, this work follows the vital dynamics of the formation of a crystal, not through mimesis but by following the internal laws of matter.