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"Light, shadow and brightness", Károly Kernstok's program, was best realized in "Nude Boy Leaning against a Tree". He painted it in the garden of his home in Nyergesújfalu. He was still under the influence of the "neos" when he painted it, loosely composed green leaves, green reflexes and the posture indicate that Kernstok relied on Matisse's art, too. Although the composition is not suggestive of an inventor by emphasizing diagonals, the way he treats forms and colours is by all means new in art. The prevailing tone comes from green leaves and grass, and the yellowish cardboard which every now and then flashes up between patches of colours painted in quick and excited brushstrokes. Contours of the tree trunk and the figure are closed and definite, and show the influence of art nouveau. Although Kernstok often rejected Cézanne's artistic method in his writings, chromium-oxid-greens and yellows, azure and purple shades, blue and green reflexes vibrating on the figure, especially the head and face in black contours without any individual marks indicate that he was influenced by Cézanne's method and the expressionism of the "wild".
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