ROBERT DELAUNAY, his artist quotes on painting & art statements on color & form in French Orphism; + biography facts
Robert Delaunay (1885 – 1941), with his artist quotes and art statements on painting and life by the French famous color-painter who started his painting first in Cubism. It was after a few years that Delaunay reacted on the rigid color use of the Cubist artists. So he co-founded – with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others – the French Orphism art movement. The Eiffel tower was a favourite subject in his painting art. Delanuay became moreover an important art teacher for other artists in Paris like the famous painter Poliakoff.
* At the bottom are more biography and life facts on Robert Delaunay and art links for more information of the famous French color-artist. – the editor.
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Robert Delaunay: ‘Formes Circulaires’, 1913 |
Robert Delaunay, his quotes & art statements on color, form & simultaneousness as painting technique of Orphism
- Light in nature creates movement in colour. The movement is provided by the relationships of uneven measures, of colours contrasts among themselves and constitutes Reality. (note of 1913, on the importance of light, fh)
* Robert Delaunay, artist quotes and statements on color in painting and simultaneousness as art technique in Orphism: a text on his ‘Windows’-paintings, a series artworks he started in 1912 (famous French painter from Paris – creating his art first in Cubism. Later Delaunay co-founded Orphism as a colorful and dynamic alternative for Cubism; included are short biography facts at the bottom)
- ‘Simultaneousness’ is a technique. Simultaneous contrast is the most up-to-date honing of this technique in this field. Simultaneous contrast is visible depth – Reality, Form, construction, representation. Depth is the new inspiration. We live in depth, we travel in depth. I’m in it. The senses are in it. And the mind is too.
* Delaunay’s artist quote on Simultaneousnes – an essential painting technique of Orphism, from: from an article by art-critic Félix Fénéon, who collected notes of Delaunay, published in ‘Simultanism’, October 1913; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 57
- (remark to Sonia Delaunay, his wife and female artist in Paris, fh), I can see the black spots of the sun. (Sonia told about the paintings which Delaunay made in the summer of 1913: ‘Robert wanted to look straight at the midday sun, the absolute disk… …he closed his eyelids and focused in his retinal reactions. Back home, what he tried to commit to canvas was what he had seen with his eyes open and his eyes shut’.
* quoted by his wife Sonia, from: from ‘Nous irons jusqu’au soleil’, Delaunay; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 214
- What they (the Futurist artists in Paris, like Severini, Carra and Russolo, who debated in Paris intensively with the Cubist artists and their spokesman Appolinaire, fh) are saying is okay.
* Robert Delaunay, his artist quote on the Futurist art concepts he appreciated like simultaneousness and color-divisionism: from a letter, February 1912; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 184
- The woman of the (painting) ‘The City of Paris’, (Delaunay painted it in 1910 – 1912) sums up the Cubist period… …the (painting) ‘The Cardiff team’ (1913) is more significant in the expression of colour, less shattered. The yellow poster in the complete picture contrasts with the blues, greens and orange.
* artist quote in which Delaunay explains his development from Cubism towards his color art of Orphism between 1910 till 1913: from the document ‘Du cubisme a l’art abstrait 1924; published by Francastel; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 190
- The need for a new subject has inspired the poets, launching them onto a fresh path and bringing to their attention to poetry of la Tour (Eiffel tower, fh), which communicates mysteriously with the whole world. Rays of light, waves of symphonic sounds. Factories, bridges, iron structures, airships, the numberless gyrations of aeroplanes, windows seen by crowd simultaneously.
* Robert Delaunay’s art statement refers to his many famous paintings he made of the Eiffel tower, seen as a symbol for a radiation-Futurist modern time – published in: ‘Les Soirées de Paris’, and republished in ‘Sturm’ (a German art-magazine edited by Walden, fh); quoted in a document, published by Francastel op. cit. October 1913 11 bis p. 111
Robert Delaunay, short biography of the French great color-painter, about his life and painting art – founder of Orphism
Without any art education Delaunay started circa 1903, painting at first in a neo-impressionistic style, till he discovered Cubism art and became an active artist in the Cubist group in Paris with Picasso, Braque, Gris and Leger. The limitations in color use by the cubist artists couldn’t satisfy his longing for a fresh and colorful art, which lead him to his personal style, Orphic cubism or better Orphism. Fresh colors, movement, light, dynamic and rhythm became essential to Delaunay; the core elements of his simultaneous approach.
In 1910 Delaunay married the famous woman-artist Sonja Terk, and they settled in a studio in Paris. Circa 1911 he was invited by Kandinsky to participate in an exhibition of the Blue Rider (Blaue Reiter) in Munich. Macke, Franz Marc and Paul Klee became strongly inspired by the color use and art concepts of Delaunay.
Robert Delaunay was interested in the geometric fragmentation of cubism, but—unlike the cubist painters, who removed almost all colour from their paintings—he considered colour to be a powerful aesthetic element. One of the ideas Delaunay used in the question how to integrate colour and Cubism was ’the principles of harmony and contrast of colours and their applications to the arts’, generated by the chemist Michel-Eugene Chevreul. Delaunay was interested in applying these concepts in an abstract visual art statement, exploring the effects of colour and light when they are not bound to an object. In his painting Simultaneous Composition: Sun Disks (1912–13), for example, he painted superimposed circles of colour that have a sense of rhythm and movement that can be considered analogous to music harmony. his wife, Sonia Delaunay, also experimented with an orphic painting style.
Apollinaire regarded later the colourful cubist-inspired paintings of Robert Delaunay as initiating a new modern art-style that brought musical qualities to the area of painting. So he named this style Orphism in reference to Orpheus, the legendary poet and singer of ancient Greek mythology.
Robert Delaunay; art links for biography facts about his life and for his Orphism art
* information on life and art by the famous French artist Robert Delaunay, on Wikipedia
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