The first painting reflects the musical roots of the prelude – the introductory part of a musical movement. The fantastical panorama of the mountain and cloudy sky portrays the musical idea of the composition. The painting depicts a mountain encircled by a road planted with trees running down in a wide sweep and arching up again with momentum onto another hill and on to the world of the “Fugue”. The tension of the musical movement indicates that the giant centaur at the top of the mountain is aiming his bow in the direction of something that is about to happen. It is in this direction that the polyphonic clouds are developing as well, a score of figures that transforms within the “Fugue” into three polyphonic rows of figures. 

"The anthropomorphic and zoomorphic shapes of the clouds have assisted Čiurlionis as a fantastical motif and even a narrative tool (in the “Prince's Journey”) on more than one occasion; however, this is no longer a fairytale, but a dynamic expression of rhythms, gestures, and figures, flexibly and impulsively multiplying into new variations, all united by the direction of their movement and their drive forward. The movement comes to a halt at the pale foot of a giant on a cloud – a rock. By stepping in from the right, it completes the composition as the sign of exceptional stability,” (Landsbergis, V. Čiurlionio dailė. Vilnius: Vaga, 1976, 218).