Orphism or Orphic Cubism, a term coined by the French

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire (; ; born Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Poland, Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

in 1912, was an offshoot of Cubism that focused on pure

abstraction Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" ...

and bright colors, influenced by Fauvism, the theoretical writings of Paul Signac, Charles Henry and the dye chemist

Michel Eugène Chevreul Michel Eugène Chevreul (; 31 August 1786 – 9 April 1889) was a French chemist whose work contributed to significant developments in science, medicine, and art. Chevreul's early work with animal fats revolutionized soap and candle manufacturing ...

. This movement, perceived as key in the transition from Cubism to

Abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a Composition (visual arts), composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. ''Abstract art'', ''non-figurative art'', ''non- ...

, was pioneered by

František Kupka František Kupka (23 September 1871 – 24 June 1957), also known as ''Frank Kupka'' or ''François Kupka,'' was a Czech painter and graphic artist A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, eit ...

Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (; 12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist of the School of Paris movement; who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism (art), Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and g ...

and Sonia Delaunay, who relaunched the use of color during the monochromatic phase of Cubism. The meaning of the term Orphism was elusive when it first appeared and remains to some extent vague.

History

The Orphists were rooted in Cubism but tended towards a pure

lyrical abstraction Lyrical abstraction arose from either of two related but distinct art movement, trends in Post-war Modernist painting: * European ''Abstraction Lyrique'': a movement that emerged in Paris, with the French art critic Jean José Marchand being cr ...

. They saw art as the unification of sensation and color. More concerned with sensation, they began with recognizable subjects, depicted with abstract structures. Orphism aimed to vacate recognizable subject matter by concentrating exclusively on ''form'' and ''color''. The movement also strove toward the ideals of Simultanism: endless interrelated states of being. The decomposition of spectral light in Neo-Impressionist color theory of Paul Signac and Charles Henry played an important role in the development of Orphism.

Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...

, and

Gino Severini Gino Severini (7 April 1883 – 26 February 1966) was an Italian Painting, painter and a leading member of the Futurism (art), Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classici ...

all knew Henry personally.Robert Herbert, 1968, Neo-Impressionism, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York A mathematician, inventor, and esthetician, Charles Henry was a close friend of the Symbolist writers Félix Fénéon and Gustave Kahn. He also knew Seurat, Signac and Pissarro, whom he met during the eighth and last Impressionist exhibition in 1886. Henry brought ''emotional associational theory'' into the realm of art: something that ultimately influenced the Neo-Impressionists. Henry and Seurat agreed that the basic elements of art—line, color and form—like words, could be treated independently, each with its own abstract quantity, independent of one another, or in unison, depending on the intention of the artist. "Seurat knows well" wrote Fénéton in 1889, "that the line, independent of its topographical role, possesses an assessable abstract value" in addition to the particles of color, and the relation to emotion of the viewer. The underlying theory behind Neo-Impressionsim had a lasting effect on the works of Delaunay. The Neo-Impressionists had succeeded in establishing an objective scientific basis for their painting in the domain of color, but only as regards the spectrum of light (for paint pigments the result was less scientific). The Cubists ultimately employed the theory to some extent in color, form and ''dynamics''. The Symbolists perceived Orpheus of

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as the ideal artist. In 1907 Apollinaire wrote ''Bestiaire ou cortège d'Orphée'', symbolizing Orpheus as a mystic and influential poet and artist, just as the Symbolists. ''The voice of light'' that Apollinaire mentioned in his poems was a metaphor for ''inner experiences''.

Apollinaire

Apollinaire mentioned the term Orphism in an address at the Salon de la Section d'Or in 1912, referring to the ''pure painting'' of

. In his 1913 '' Les Peintres Cubistes, Méditations Esthétiques'' Apollinaire described Orphism as "the art of painting new totalities with elements that the artist does not take from visual reality, but creates entirely by himself. ..An Orphic painter's works should convey an 'untroubled aesthetic pleasure', a meaningful structure and sublime significance." Orphism represented a new art-form, much as music was to literature. These analogies could be seen in the titles of paintings such as Kupka's ''Amorpha: Fugue in Two Colors'' (1912);

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, writer, filmmaker, magazine publisher, poet, and typography, typographist closely associated with Dada. When consid ...

's ''Dance at the Source'' (1912) and

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

's ''Über das Geistige in der Kunst'' (1912). Kandinsky described the relationships between sound and color. Robert Delaunay was concerned with color and music, and exhibited with the Blaue Reiter at the request of Kandinsky. The increasingly abstract paintings of Fernand Léger, and Marcel Duchamp were also treated as Orphists by Apollinaire.

Exhibitions

The Salon de la Section d'Or in 1912 was the first exhibition that presented Orphism to the general public. In March 1913 Orphism was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. Reviewing the salon in ''Montjoie'' (29 March 1913) Apollinaire argued for the abolition of Cubism in favor of Orphism: "If Cubism is dead, long live Cubism. The kingdom of Orpheus is at hand!" The Autumn salon ( Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon, Berlin) of 1913, organized by Herwarth Walden of Der Sturm, exhibited many works by Robert and Sonia Delaunay,

Jean Metzinger Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...

's '' L'Oiseau bleu'' (1913, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris),

' '' Les Joueurs de football'' (1912–13, National Gallery of Art), paintings by Picabia, and Léger, along with several Futurist works. From this exhibition Apollinaire's relation with R. Delaunay cooled, following remarks with Umberto Boccioni about the ambiguity of 'simultaneity'. Apollinaire no longer used the term Orphism in his subsequent writings and began instead promoting Picabia,

Alexander Archipenko Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian-American avant-garde artist, sculpture, sculptor, and graphic designer, graphic artist, active in France and the United States. He was one of the first to apply the principles o ...

, and Futurist concepts. Delaunay ChampDeMars

The Delaunays

Robert Delaunay and his wife Sonia Terk Delaunay remained the main protagonists of the Orphic movement. Their earlier works focused on Fauvist colors, variously abstract; such as Sonia's 1907 ''Finnish Girl'' and Robert's 1906 ''Paysage au disque'', the former relying on pure colors, the latter on color and mosaic-like brushstrokes painted under the influence of

, also a Neo-Impressionist (with highly Divisionist and Fauve components) at the time. Delaunay officially broke with cubism in 1912, faulting Picasso for restricting the palette of his still lifes to muted, monkish tones of brown and gray, and for retaining traces of figurative imagery. Even though Orphism was effectively dissolved before

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, American painters Patrick Henry Bruce and Arthur Burdett Frost Jr., two of R. Delaunay's pupils, embarked on a similar form of art from 1912 onward. The Synchromists Morgan Russell and Stanton Macdonald-Wright wrote their own manifestos in an attempt to differentiate themselves from the Orphism of the Delaunays.

References and sources

;References ;Sources *Baron, Stanley; Damase, Jacques. ''Sonia Delaunay: The Life of an Artist''. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995 * Buckberrough, Sherry A. ''Robert Delaunay: The Discovery of Simultaneity''. Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1978. * Chadwick, Whitney; de Courtivron, Isabelle. (ed) ''Significant Others: Creativity and Intimate partnership''. London: Thames & Hudson, 1993. * Chip, Herschel B. "Orphism and Color Theory". ''The Art Bulletin'', Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 55–63, Mar 1958. * Damase, Jacque. ''Sonia Delaunay: Rhythms and Colours''. Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society Ltd, 1972. * Gale, Matthew. ''Dada and Surrealism''. New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 2006 * Hughes, Gordon "Envisioning Abstraction: The Simultaneity of Robert Delaunay's First Disk". ''The Art Bulletin'', Vol. 89, No. 2, pp. 306–332, Jun 2007. The College Art Association. * MoMA
Orphism
* Seidner, David. Sonia Delaunay. BOMB Magazine, 2/Winter, ART, 1982
BOMB Magazine: Sonia Delauney by David Seidner
* Stangoes, Nikos (ed). ''Concepts of Modern Art: Fauvism to Post-Modernism''. Chapter: "Orphism", Virginia Spate. (Revised) London: Thames & Hudson, 1981.

External links