The City of Paris

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The City of Paris

Artist Robert Delaunay (French, 1885-1941)

Place of OriginFrance

Dateabout 1911

DimensionsPainting: 47 × 68 in. (119.4 × 172.7 cm)
Framed: 53 × 73 3/8 × 2 3/4 in. (134.6 × 186.4 × 7 cm)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1955.38

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 03

Label TextIn 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, ItalyPublished References

The Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, p. 54, pl. 287.

"Accessions," Art Quarterly, Winter 1956, p. 426.

Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol.1, no. 2, Summer 1957, p. 13, repr. p. 12.

Lee, Katherine C., "Modern Art," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 11, no. 4, Autumn 1968, p. 80 repr.

Phillips, Robert F., "Abstract Expressionists," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 19, no. 4, 1977, p. 89, repr.

Buckberrough, Sherry A., Robert Delaunay, the discovery of simultaneity, Ann Arbor, p. 91.

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 310 and cover, repr. (col.).

Carr, Maureen A., After the Rite: Stravinsky's Path to Neoclassicism (1914-25), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp.13-15, repr. p. 14, repr. (col.) p. 168, fig. 15.

Exhibition HistoryToledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, What is Modern Art?, March 1960, p. 2.

Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Robert Delaunay: 1906-1914 de l'impressionnisme à l'abstraction, 1999, p. 156-161, repr. (col.). p. 163