The City of Paris
Artist: Robert Delaunay (French, 1885-1941)
Date: about 1911
Dimensions:
Painting: 47 × 68 in. (119.4 × 172.7 cm)
Framed: 53 × 73 3/8 × 2 3/4 in. (134.6 × 186.4 × 7 cm)
Medium: oil on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 1955.38
Label Text:In The City of Paris, Delaunay draws back the curtain to display his vibrant image of Paris. At center stage are the mythical Three Graces adapted from a Roman fresco from Pompeii (see illustration). Linking the achievements of the past with the vibrating pulse of modern life, the Graces extend their arms through antiquity and present to us the Parisian cityscape dominated by the modern landmark of the Eiffel Tower.
Interested in the simultaneous viewpoints of Cubism, Delaunay nevertheless rejected Analytic Cubism’s favoring of line over color (see Picasso’s Woman in a Black Hat in this gallery). He would soon reject representation entirely for pure abstraction that elevated the role of color—“Color alone is form and subject,” he wrote. Delaunay infuses City of Paris with bursts of shimmering color and light and fragmented form, giving the effect of looking at the whole of the city at once through the wonder of a child’s kaleidoscope.
[caption] Roman, The Three Graces, fresco, about 65–79 C.E. From Pompeii, the House of Titus Dentatus Panthera. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, Italy
Interested in the simultaneous viewpoints of Cubism, Delaunay nevertheless rejected Analytic Cubism’s favoring of line over color (see Picasso’s Woman in a Black Hat in this gallery). He would soon reject representation entirely for pure abstraction that elevated the role of color—“Color alone is form and subject,” he wrote. Delaunay infuses City of Paris with bursts of shimmering color and light and fragmented form, giving the effect of looking at the whole of the city at once through the wonder of a child’s kaleidoscope.
[caption] Roman, The Three Graces, fresco, about 65–79 C.E. From Pompeii, the House of Titus Dentatus Panthera. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, Italy
On view
In Collection(s)