Reckon | The Whole World's a Stage

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i12bent:

Robert Delaunay: Sun, Tower, Aeroplane: Simultaneous, 1913 (Albright-Knox Gallery)

“Sun, Tower, Airplane reflects Robert Delaunay’s enthusiasm for the technological developments of the time in which he lived. For him, technology was not the antithesis of nature; he believed that they could coexist harmoniously. Thus the sun mentioned in the title suffuses the entire canvas with warm colors and energy.

While the sun dominates the left side of the canvas, the right side celebrates three symbols of technological achievement. In 1889, the Eiffel Tower, the tallest structure of its time, was erected in Paris for the World’s Fair. Designed by French engineer Alexandre Eiffel, it allowed Parisians to view their city from an exciting new vantage point. Although many people considered it an eyesore, Delaunay was fascinated by the tower and painted it many times. He also wrote about “the poetry of the tower, which communicates mysteriously with the whole world. Rays of light, symphonic waves of sound.” This could perhaps be a reference to early radio, which must have seemed truly mysterious to people in 1913. At the top, a box-like biplane soars overhead. The Wright brothers had successfully flown the first biplane only ten years before, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The inclusion of the biplane is also an homage to French aviator and inventor Louis Bleriot, who in 1909 became the first to fly across the English channel in a heavier-than-air machine. At the extreme right is an evocation of the popular carnival ride invented in 1893 by American engineer George Ferris for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Delaunay’s feelings about these technological marvels are reflected in the lively, energetic lines and shapes, and the warm, bright colors. The disk-like forms seen floating in the left side of the canvas represented for him the rhythms of the universe and modern consciousness. He felt that the experience of the modern world could not be convincingly expressed in traditional representational forms, so he adopted this more abstract way of painting.” — Mariann Smith

i12bent:

The birthday of Robert Delaunay, French Orphist, abstract painter and commercial designer: April 12, 1885 (d. 1941, cancer)…

“In 1908, after a term in the military working as a regimental librarian, Delaunay met Sonia Terk, whom he later married, though at the time she was married to a German art dealer whom she would soon divorce. In 1909, Delaunay began to paint a series of studies of the city of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. The following year, he married Terk, and the couple settled in a studio apartment in Paris, where they later had a son. At the invitation of Wassily Kandinsky, Delaunay joined The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter), a Munich-based group of abstract artists, in 1911, and his art took a turn for the abstract.

The outbreak of World War I found Delaunay and his wife vacationing in Spain, and they settled with friends in Portugal for the duration of the conflict. During this period, the couple took on several jobs designing costumes for the Madrid Opera, and Sonia Delaunay started a fashion design business. After the war, in 1921, they returned to Paris. Delaunay continued to work in a mostly abstract style. During the 1937 World Fair in Paris, Delaunay participated in the design of the railway and air travel pavilions. When World War II erupted, the Delaunays moved to the Auvergne, in an effort to avoid the invading German forces. Suffering from cancer, Delaunay was unable to endure being moved around, and his health deteriorated. He died from cancer on 25 October 1941 in Montpellier.” (Wiki)

Delaunay on OF: 1 2 - and Sonia Delaunay-Terk: 1

i12bent:

Ed Moses (b. April 9, 1926): 2nd P.H. 148, 1973 - resin and acrylic on canvas (Smithsonian)

“Born near Long Beach, California, Ed Moses studied at UCLA, receiving B.A. and M.A. degrees. He has remained in the Los Angeles area much of his life and is one of that city’s outstanding abstract artists. In the course of his career he has explored many styles. Initially drawn to abstract expressionism, he has also shown interest in color field painting and in minimalism. His work ranges from compositions featuring repeated decorative patterns to hard-edged geometric designs. Color is not used to describe objects, but rather to establish pure aesthetic experience. His graphics, such as the Wedge prints, reveal his interest in the ways in which the process and materials are united to become the image, purely abstract and referring only to itself.” [This is an excerpt from the interactive companion program to the videodisc American Art from the National Gallery of Art.]