Paris Between the Wars - "D" is for Robert Delaunay
Between 1919 and 1939, Paris experienced a cultural and intellectual boom. This blog will feature artists, writers, composers, musicians, and designers. Paris was at its cultural peak.
Born in Paris in 1885, Robert-Victor-Felix Delaunay was a French artist who co-founded the Orphism art movement, known for its use of strong colors and geometric shapes. This movement was perceived as key in the transition from Cubism to Abstract Art.
At 17, Delaunay indicated an interest in painting, and was sent by his uncle to study 'decorative arts.' Two years later, he struck out on his own and focused entirely on painting.
Delaunay and his wife lived in Spain and Portugal until after the end of World War I, when they returned to Paris. He continued to work in a mostly abstract style, but during the 1937 World Fair in Paris, Delaunay participated in the design of the railway and air travel pavilions. When World War II began, the Delaunays moved to the Auvergne, a rural region in central France, in an effort to avoid the invading German forces. Suffering from cancer, Delaunay's health deteriorated, and he died in 1941 at the age of 56.Art historian Robert Herbert described the vibrating image of the sun in the painting shown above as "an homage to the decomposition of spectral light that lay at the heart of Neo-Impressionist color theory..."