Robert Delaunay

French painter

• Born: April 12, 1885
• Birthplace: Paris, France
• Died: October 25, 1941
• Place of death: Montpellier, France

Delaunay believed that colors are the painter’s actual language, that color is both form and subject of a work of art. His experiments with the interaction of colors and the visual effects of light made him one of the most important pioneers of early twentieth century abstraction.

Early Life

Robert Delaunay (deh-loh-nay) was born in Paris, the only child of aristocratic, but irresponsible, parents whose way of life was fashionable, elegant, and frivolous. His parents were divorced when Robert was four, and he never saw his father again. His mother, who traveled extensively, left her young son in the care of his aunt and uncle, and he spent most of his childhood at their country estate near Bourges. An indifferent student in most subjects, Delaunay was expelled from several schools before finally enrolling at the Lycée Michelet at Vanves, where he remained until he was seventeen.

From 1902 to 1904, Delaunay worked in the Rosin Decorative Studio in Belleville, painting theatrical backdrops. Biographical details of this period are few, and there is no evidence that he did any independent creative work, although his later preference for working on a large scale possibly dates back to his experiences at that studio.

Unlike most artists in the early twentieth century, Delaunay had no formal academic training. He was, however, aware of the most important movements in late nineteenth and early twentieth century painting. His works from 1904 to 1907, done while he was still in his early twenties, illustrate his mastery of the major tenets of these different modes of painting. His Landscape of La Ronchère (1904) and Haystacks of Berry (1905) show the unmistakable influence of the Impressionism of Claude Monet and Pissarro, while works such as Breton Woman (1904) and Seaweed Gatherer (1905) evince his experiments with the deliberate outlines and flattened planes of color that characterized the works of Paul Gauguin and the Nabis.

Life’s Work

The fall of 1905 marked the beginning of Delaunay’s Neo-Impressionist period. Influenced now by the works of Georges Seurat and Henri Cross, he no longer used color instinctively, turning his attention instead to some of the scientific theories of light and color that had occupied the two elder artists. He adapted to his own purposes the Neo-Impressionist or pointillist technique of placing both color and light values on canvas in the way that light does in nature the colors present in nature were separated into their constituent hues, and the various color values were marked exactly with small brushstrokes or dots of pigment, placed on the canvas in a juxtaposition that allowed the viewer’s eye to reconstitute them as an “optical mixture.” Thus, color was liberated in the artistic consciousness, with the individual color value taking on new meaning as the basic element the building block of a new, independent pictorial structure that, with its new relationship between depth and surface, went beyond academic illusionism.

Delaunay’s Neo-Impressionist portraits and landscapes marked the beginning of his lifelong concern with problems of color, light, and structure. The Landscape with Disc (1906), a depiction of the setting sun on the horizon, is especially notable for his treatment of the sun’s rays as a circular motif of solid contours, which predicts his later use of the circular form as both formal element and cosmic symbol.

About 1906, Delaunay began investigating the Fauves use of color, as seen in several small paintings in which the interaction of form and color is remarkably self-assured, furnishing additional evidence of his rapid maturation into a major figure in the contemporary art world. He was exhibiting now at the Salon des Indépendants and even at the more conservative Salon d’Automne.

In 1907, just as Fauvism was beginning to lose its impetus, a retrospective exhibition of the works of Paul Cézanne made a profound impression on Delaunay. The earliest evidence of Cézanne’s influence on Delaunay’s work appeared in two still lifes of 1907 (Vases and Objects), in which there is a new simplicity and a new respect for the relationship between objects and the space that surrounds them. Cézanne continued to be important to Delaunay throughout his career, and he always acknowledged his indebtedness to the elder painter, declaring later in his own career that “all of us have sprung from Cézanne.”

For a brief period in 1909, Delaunay worked in the analytical, almost monochromatic, cubist style of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso but found that he was not attuned to the austerity of that style. Not surprisingly, his cubist paintings lack the confidence and enthusiasm of his other works.

About this time, two things occurred that proved to be milestones for Delaunay: He met his future wife, and he began the first of his “series” of works. The Russian-born painter Sonia Terk, who arrived in Paris in 1905, possessed what Delaunay himself labeled an “atavistic” sense of pure color. As the two became better acquainted, they found many of their ideas compatible. It is quite possible that Terk influenced, at least in part, Delaunay’s return to color after his cubist period. In any case, throughout their marriage (1910-1941), the two complemented and intensified each other’s creative theories and energies.

Delaunay’s first series, Cities (begun in 1909), is the inception of his practice of painting variations on the same theme that is, a number of canvases that had the same subject and identical or similar formats but that were somehow very different from one another. The Cities series, painted during his cubist period and therefore almost monochromatic and static, was his first use of a “window frame” composition in which the picture is arranged as if it were a window, with curtains falling in graceful arcs at either side. He repeated this composition later in the Windows series of 1912-1913 and in The City of Paris of 1912.

Delaunay’s next two series, chronologically, were the Views of Saint-Séverin and the Eiffel Tower (both c. 1909-1911), in which he returned to his previous interest in color and movement. In View of Saint-Séverin, for example, he worked with the phenomenon of colors modified or transformed by light: The sun’s rays transformed the stained glass of the cathedral’s windows and, in turn, the light filtering through the glass transformed the architecture. In a similar fashion, the Eiffel Tower in Delaunay’s paintings is transformed by light as it is seen silhouetted against the sky. Again, Delaunay was indebted to Cézanne, who had analyzed the distortion of forms by light falling on the landscape, on objects, and on the human figure. Delaunay took this analysis one step further, applying it to architecture.

Delaunay painted the Eiffel Tower some thirty times, undoubtedly drawn by the beauty of its simple geometric design. Beyond that, it was also a powerful symbol of modernism, thought by most to be the supreme example of modern engineering techniques, indicative of humankind’s newly found ability, through science and technology, to meet any challenge, to conquer the air, the seas, and even the universe itself. That this symbolism was not lost on Delaunay is attested by the words he wrote on the back of his first painting in the series: “The Tower Addresses the Universe.” About this time, he also began painting two other objects that symbolized the triumph of modern engineering the Great Ferris Wheel and the airplane and these, referred to wholly or in part, were ubiquitous in his work thereafter.

In 1912, Delaunay, building on the compositional technique used in the Cities, began the Windows series. What remained of the earlier scene viewed through a window, however, was only the window and its reflections, that is, a series of abstract planes of color, inspired by the reflection of light in a windowpane or mirror. Here and there, parts of the Eiffel Tower and the Great Ferris Wheel emerged out of the reflections thus, the paintings still maintained some connection with visual reality.

Then, with works such as the Disc and Circular Forms done in the winter of 1912-1913, Delaunay severed these last ties to the visible world, creating paintings that were truly nonrepresentational or abstract, based solely on the interaction of color. This new language of painting was labeled “orphism” by writer and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire, who further defined it as an art built from elements created entirely by the artist himself, without reference to visual reality, which must simultaneously give pure aesthetic pleasure, a self-evident structure, and a sublime meaning (or subject). After 1913-1914, Delaunay returned to representational art in works such as Merry-Go-Round of Pigs, Homage to Blériot, and The Cardiff Team. Throughout the rest of his career, he alternated between representational and abstract art, exploring in each painting all the rich possibilities of color, light, and movement.

Considered one of the foremost artists of the day, he had several one-person shows and was included in important group exhibitions throughout Europe and in the United States. In 1937, he finally realized his long-standing ambition to free himself from the confines of conventional easel painting when he received the commission to do several immense murals for the International Exposition. The following year, he again worked on a very large scale, creating his three Rhythms for the Tuileries Salon. These were to be his last important works; he died on October 25, 1941, at age fifty-six.

Significance

Delaunay’s originality and his importance to the development of modern art resides in his experiments with the interaction of color, light, and movement, which eventually led to the creation of one of the first totally nonobjective works of art. His theories influenced many other artists, among whom were Hans Arp, Franz Marc, August Macke, and Paul Klee.

The early twentieth century was, for most artists, a period of intense experimentation and discovery, marked by the appearance of groups and movements in rapid succession Fauvism, cubism, German expressionism, Futurism, and so forth. To bring some sense of order to this active, creative, and often confusing period, it became common practice for historians to use the categories established by these movements as a framework, fitting each artist into his or her place within it. Delaunay, however, was not actually a member of any particular movement and therefore does not fit into any single category. This may explain why, in the period between the two world wars, most writers chose to ignore Delaunay, despite the fact that his work was as original and innovative as ever.

Rediscovered in the 1950’s by several historians and a young generation of artists who were influenced by his studies of color and light, Delaunay has again taken his rightful place among the pioneers of early modern art. Significant collections of his works can be seen in the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Bibliography

Antliff, Mark, and Patricia Leighten. Cubism and Culture. London: Thames & Hudson, 2001. Information about Robert and Sonia Delaunay is included in this history of cubism.

Cohen, Arthur A. Sonia Delaunay. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1975. Although focused on Sonia Delaunay, this book contains important information about Robert’s art as well and about the entire milieu in which the couple lived and worked. Equally informative is the assessment made of the extent to which the two collaborated in the development of orphism, which is followed by an interesting discussion of the significant ways in which their work differed. Profusely illustrated with good-quality color and black-and-white plates.

Delaunay, Robert, and Sonia Delaunay. The New Art of Color: The Writings of Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Edited by Arthur A. Cohen. New York: Viking Press, 1978. An extremely important source for the artist’s statements about his own work and that of many of his contemporaries, taken from his unpublished writings, notebooks, and letters. Also includes some of the writings by Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, and others about Delaunay’s work. The sections dealing with Sonia Delaunay’s work include several essays by Robert, along with her own statements.

Hoog, Michel. R. Delaunay. Translated by Alice Sachs. New York: Crown, 1976. One of the most complete biographies of Delaunay available in English. Hoog perceptively analyzes each phase of the artist’s development, with specific references to the influences on his work. Contains excellent color reproductions of major works from Delaunay’s beginnings to the end of his career, along with many black-and-white plates of his studies and drawings.

Rosenblum, Robert. Cubism and Twentieth-Century Art. 1965. New ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001. Rosenblum discusses the relationship between Delaunay and the principal cubist artists, pointing out how his own artistic vocabulary was influenced by cubism and then detailing the significant departures that he made from cubism. The many excellent color plates allow readers to make a visual comparison and contrast between Delaunay’s work and that of many of his contemporaries.

Rosenthal, Mark, ed. Visions of Paris: Robert Delaunay’s Series. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1997. Catalog from an exhibition held at New York City’s Guggenheim Museum includes essays and reproductions of Delaunay’s work.

Vriesen, Gustav, and Max Imdahl. Robert Delaunay: Light and Color. Translated by Maria Pelikan. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1967. This monograph traces Delaunay’s career from his earliest paintings through the Window series of 1913-1914, when the coauthor, Gustav Vriesen, a noted German historian, died before completing his manuscript. The work was published with a concluding essay by Max Imdahl considering Delaunay’s place in history. Includes many color plates and some interesting personal photographs of Delaunay, his family, and his friends.