Delone Robert is known worldwide as the founder of a new art style. Without an art education, he was able to become an innovator, entrusting everything to color. His faithful companion and co-author was his wife, who emigrated during the revolution from Odessa.
Throughout his life, he sought to achieve perfection only with the help of color, entrusting him with all the functions. He managed to achieve this, but illness and war prevented him from developing his work.
short biography
Delone Robert was born on April 12, 1885 in Paris. Due to the early divorce of his parents, his uncle was engaged in raising the boy. The young man did not go through special art training. However, under the influence of the work of Gauguin and Cezanne, at the age of twenty, he found himself in painting.
During the war of 1914-1918 He moved to Spain and Portugal. He returned to his hometown only in 1921. He was involved in monumental works for the 1937 World Exhibition, held in the French capital.
At the beginning of World War II, the artist left for Auvergne, but a serious illness was already progressing. Robert died on October 25, 1941, at the age of fifty-six. The cause of death was cancer.
Family life
At twenty-three, Delone Robert returned from military service and met Sonya Turk (an immigrant from Odessa). They got married two years later - in 1910. A year later, their son Charles was born.
The wife became a like-minded artist, in addition, co-author of works in design and applied art. For example, they worked together on a masterpiece for the aforementioned 1937 exhibition.
Spouses laid the foundations of their own artistic concept. It was radically different from the one that has developed since the Renaissance.
the main objective
Delone Robert believed that his main task in painting was to depict the chaos of color spots. He has repeatedly said that he primarily loves color, in contrast to the general mass of people who prefer light. Because of the love of light, our ancestors invented fire, and the master opposed it and depicted it in each of his compositions.
Creative way
At the beginning of his career in painting, Robert Delaunay was inspired by impressionism. He was fond of the work of Gauguin (Breton period). Since 1906, he was attracted by post-impressionism. But Cezanne's creations had a more significant influence.
The artist, in his own way, solved the problem of the mismatch between volume and color. Therefore, his cubism was original. This was expressed in paintings of 1906, on which objects were framed by a luminous halo.
According to the artist, a linear pattern leads to an error. He found it among many famous cubists. Realizing how to break the lines, he completely sought to get away from them. To do this, he returned to the “separate” smear of post-impressionism. This made it possible to distinguish forms without using contours.
By 1912, the master switched to color technique and settled on it. She helped the artist achieve what she wanted when the forms on the canvases were created by correlating differently painted planes. Space is obtained using tonal inconsistencies.
The main periods of creativity
Constructive
The artist Delaunay Robert believed that color is valuable in its own right, so with its help it replaced most of the elements, such as a perspective picture and a volume with chiaroscuro. The period began in 1912. He strove to ensure that the form, composition, plot were conveyed exclusively in color.
The master discovered the quality of color, which is known as dynamic power. He noticed that the colors located nearby can lead to a kind of vibration. This allowed the creator to simulate the movement of the composition.
An example of this period are paintings from the ensemble "Round shapes".
Iberian
Delone Robert, whose work is in question, during the hostilities of 1914-1917. lived in Portugal, Spain. Here he began to apply a new technique, depicting the human body and various objects.
The artist was able to deepen the emerging concept of "dissonance" in the visual arts. In his interpretation, it was a juxtaposition of color with rapid vibrations. In the twenties of the last century, he perfected his own artistic language.
An example is the painting "Portuguese Still Life."
Second abstract
The artist returned to the problems that he tried to curb in the ensemble "Round Forms" in 1930. Delaunay created other works on the same topic. They turned out to be more dynamic and generally more perfect from a technical point of view.
He could find the true solution in the series “Joy of Life”. In these paintings, the artist resorted to technology, with the help of which he was able to distinguish fragments and focus only on composition.
Examples of works of this period include “Rhythms”, “Endless Rhythms”.
Monumental period
Robert Delaunay (biography is inextricably linked with Sonya Turk) saw in his painting a monumental character. He explained to his comrades and followers that by making the transition in work on one creation to the second, and then to the next, you can get an ensemble. Such painting, in his opinion, does not destroy architecture, but makes colors play on the surface.
In his work with Relief Rhythms, the French artist used and even invented materials that would be resistant to the effects of the external environment.
In 1937, the organizers of the Paris exhibition proposed to deal with the design of two buildings. So, Delaunay had the opportunity to combine architecture with his works. He created huge relief panels.
In a similar monumental style were the latest creations, such as “Circular rhythm”, “Three rhythms”. They became a kind of spiritual testament of the author. Subsequent creative searches of Delaunay interrupted the disease and subsequent death.
Series of paintings
The master refused in his work from the usual means, from a standard way of thinking. He decided to entrust everything to color. Current scientific theories have confirmed the creative pursuit of the master. Exceptionally in color, he managed to show a new perception of space, the dynamism of the material.
Being a Parisian, the artist could not ignore the main architectural building of our time. Therefore, he depicted on canvases the symbol of his native city, Robert Delaunay. The Eiffel Tower is a series of paintings that he painted since 1909. Light streams in them from everywhere, as a result of which the image falls apart. Each fragment is subject to its own perspective.
In 1912 he created the ensemble “Windows”, in which space is depicted using color contrasts. They created depth without the need for chiaroscuro.
In 1914 he painted the painting “In Honor of Bleriot” from the cycle “Round Shapes”. In it, the plot is of secondary importance. In creation, movement is successively transmitted using disc-shaped alternations. He will return to this series in 1930, creating more advanced and dynamic work.
In 1920, his creation “Naked with a Book” appeared, in which the artist applied a new technique for transmitting the human body.
Robert will find the true solution to his creative pursuits in the series of thirties, “The Joy of Life”.
