Robert Delaunay: 5 works

'With the Circular Forms Delaunay undertook as systematization of the simultaneous contrast of colors to define the universal law of our sight. His contemporaries, including Fernand Léger, August Macke and Franz Marc credited him with decisive impulses for their own artistic work; and still a generation later his influence can be seen, for example in the work of Kenneth Noland.'

'Aspects of Cubism are present but nominal, as Delaunay's reliance on the reaction of colors to convey the line sets it apart from the practices of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. In 1911, Delaunay was invited by Vassily Kandinsky to participate in the first exhibition of the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) group in Munich, held from December 1910 -- January 1912 at the Moderne Galerie Thannhauser.'

'With his depiction of the Eiffel Tower, the symbol of Paris built in 1889 as a spectacular example of French engineering, Robert Delaunay produced a shocking scenario of the decline and fall of the modern world. His admiration for industrial progress contrasts with his pictorial destruction of the architectural construction, to the point of a formal dissolution of the motif.'

'In 1912, Robert Delaunay produced, in rapid succession, a series of window pictures, Les fenêtres simultanées. Artistically, these compositions are linked to views of Paris he had begun in 1909.'

'Unlike many other early twentieth-century abstractionists, however, Delaunay also continued to paint figurative works.'