Robert Delaunay

Kayla Holsinger

Eng 201: 1:00 section

Assignment Six: Artist's Biography

Metawrite: Robert Delaunay

The student became interested in the artist of this essay when she was introduced to Robert Delaunay and Cubism in her high school art class. She knew of some of his most famous paintings but wanted to become more familiar with the artist. She was curious about the style in which Delaunay painted and also his bibliography. For the biography unit of the course she wanted to acquire information about the French artist and his impact on art culture through his creation of a unique style. The student believed this would make an interesting topic and she would be capable of adequately reproducing a biography of Robert Delaunay.

Next, the student searched for sources for her essay. To find appropriate books and articles she consulted the Centra database. From Centra, she acquired the books Visions of Paris: Robert Delaunay's Series, Robert Delaunay: Art and Color, and The New Art of Color. Thus, she met the book requirements for the essay. She also discovered sources through encyclopedia and reference entries including McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Art, Encyclopedia of World Art, and The Dictionary of Art. Another article written by Hughes was retrieved through the Humanities Abstracts database. The student searched an online general database and retrieved three more online sources of knowledge regarding the artist and examples of art reproductions for her appendixes. The student also inquired Wikipedia and uncovered useful information about her topic of interest. Throughout the research the student accumulated eleven sources total.

The student wrote her essay as precisely as she was capable of to present the biographical writing. The student followed the traditional methods established for Brauch English 201 in considering documentation, narration, chronology and revision. Within all powerful writing holds a strong thesis statement which the student has addressed in the final sentence of the first paragraph. Throughout the essay, as chosen by the student, she attempted to demonstrate the MLA style formatting. The student had a pupil from a Brauch English 201 course at Central Michigan University peer edit the essay for revision and amendment in an out of class gathering.

Kayla Holsinger

Eng 201: 1:00 section

Assignment Six: Artist's Biography

Robert Delaunay (1885-1941)

Robert Victor Félix Delaunay was one of the most important artists of the late nineteenth century in France. Delaunay was a painter, writer, and designer (Düchting 655). Delaunay was a French artist who used abstraction and cubism as his means of expression. During his powerful domination in the realm of French abstraction he created an important new art form and made many creative breakthroughs and reinventions. He is the founder of the art form Orphism, which is similar a type cubism that focuses on the abstraction of bright colors. He successfully synthesized the Impressionist model of series paintings, the allure of pure abstraction, and the contemporary language of Cubism. Delaunay receives reasonable respect and fair recognition for his philanthropy. However, Delaunay, as are most artists, is underappreciated for their legitimate contributions to today's creative ambiance. An assiduous look in to the life of Robert Delaunay and the early twentieth century cubist movement establishes a more reasonable career evaluation. Delaunay was one of the earliest completely nonrepresentational painters whose work affected the development of abstract art based on the compositional tensions and planes of color.

Delaunay was born on April 12th, 1885, into a time that could be described as a vanished world where in which aristocracy was being dissolved into the bourgeoisie (Vriesen 13). He was born an only child into a young, wealthy family of French nobility. His father, George, came from a noble family and his mother, Countess Berthe-Felicie de Rose, from an aristocratic family. Delaunay's parents divorced when he was young and he never saw his father again (Rosenthal 17). Robert Delaunay's inherited creativity came from his interest in his mother's work. She painted in a Neoimpressionist manner and embroidered for fashion designers. Delaunay's mother often traveled abroad to further her career as an artist, so Robert Delaunay spent most of his childhood growing up under his aunt and uncle's supervision ("Robert Delaunay" printout 2). When his creative style first showed itself, his mother was the only person who truly supported his artwork and pushed him to succeed (Vriesen 13).

Robert Delaunay began his career as an apprentice to a stage designer when he was seventeen in 1902 (Articons printout 1). He had no proper training or art-related education (Düchting 655). He was a creative genius and could create masterpieces naturally. In 1904 he had his first artistic encounter with the style impressionism. Since his mother was an artist, Delaunay may have absorbed some of her ideas then twisted the thoughts to make them his own. Delaunay began creating his first pieces in 1904 on his vacation get-a-ways. He used a style of post-impressionism which was very much different from the style in which his mother had practiced. Evidence in his later work through the use of circles as representation of formal and cosmic elements suggests that his mother's neo-impressionistic ways may have impacted his style more than she is given credit for.

Delaunay's rapid absorption of avant-garde impulses comes to life in his early self-portraits sequence. The first is an authentic self-representation against a violently explosive background of contrasting and complementary colors. Delaunay became fascinated with the effects color and light had on the display of perception. Between 1905 and 1907 he became friendly with Jean Metzinger and Henri Rousseau who had impacted his once neo-impressionist manner (Givan 346). Delaunay began studying the French chemist Eugene Chevreul's1 "Law of Simultaneous Contrast of Colours." The effects of his study influenced his style of painting and he became more addicted to the contrasting colors. He liked to use the oil painting technique and layers of paint in his expressions.

Delaunay is most commonly known for his cubism and abstractionism combined artwork known as Orphism. Not only does the Cubist style use modern theories of vision against vision, it does so in the manner of essential realism. Abstraction changes to a less realistic approach (Hughes