Robert Delaunay

1885-1941 • French • Painter • Orphist

"Color alone is form and subject." - Delaunay

As he moved through CUBISM and FAUVISM, Delaunay created brightly colored Eiffel Tower paintings (c.1909) that appealed to German EXPRESSIONISTS, who invited him to exhibit with the BLAUE REITER group. As his interests evolved, Delaunay's concentration on the effects of COLOR led him to refer back to the color studies of SIGNAC and to develop ideas for entirely NON OBJECTIVE paintings in a style APOLLINAIRE named ORPHISM. Important theoretical bases for Delaunay's work were the scientific writings of CHEVREUL on color harmonies as well as those of Charles Henry, who discussed color in terms of movement. Delau nay's brilliant circles and spheres, as in Simultaneous Contrasts: Sun and Moon (1913)-flaming reds, hot yellows, and golds embedded in dark and light greens and blues were painted in a circular (TONDO) format. These "Disks," or "Cosmic Circular Forms," Delaunay himself referred to in terms of "Simultaneity." With the less celebrated paintings of a con temporary, the Czech -born Frantisek (Frank) Kupka (1871-1957), and those of the American SYNCH ROMISTS, Delaunay's experiments with color were among the earliest examples of nonrepresentational, nonobjective ABSTRACT ART in Europe.